Lot 96
Plutarch
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
London: Thomas Vautrollier, 1579. First edition of Thomas North’s translation, folio, woodcut medallion portraits within decorative cartouches, initials and head and tail pieces, contemporary blind ruled and panelled calf, a few annotations in an early hand, title-page damaged with loss of the imprint and part of device, damage to upper part of the final leaf with some loss of text, lower corner of *iiii torn with loss of text, lacking four initial leaves including blank, lacking Aii-iii, some light dampstaining, mainly marginal, occasional staining including to pp. 47-8, a few small rust holes occasionally affecting text
Footnote
Thomas North's translation of Plutarch is celebrated as Shakespeare's principal historical source for his Roman plays. ‘Although modern scholarship generally recognises Shakespeare’s knowledge of Latin … as well as French and Italian, it is widely accepted that he used Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives. Ubiquitously dubbed 'Shakespeare's Plutarch', its first edition in the English vernacular appeared in 1579 and was followed by expanded editions in 1595 and 1603. North translated the Lives from the French version of Jacques Amyot, published in 1559 … Shakespeare's borrowings should be seen in the light of the fact that Plutarch's Lives were admired in early modern England for their profound interest in the complexities of the human character and their didactic significance' (Dimitrova, ‘Taking Centre Stage: Plutarch and Shakespeare’, in Sophia Xenophontos and Katerina Oikonomopoulou, Brill's Companion to the Reception of Plutarch, 2019, p. 493).