"NOT LIKELY TO LOSE ITS IMPORTANCE": HANDSOMELY BOUND FIRST EDITION OF GROTE'S PLATO, 1865

(PLATO) GROTE, George. Plato, and the Other Companions of Sokrates. London: John Murray, 1865. Three volumes. Octavo, early 20th-century full tree calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, red morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers and edges. $2800.

First edition of Grote's significant study of the Platonic canon, with frontispiece portrait of Grote, handsomely bound in full tree calf-gilt.

Intending to offer as a companion piece to his 12-volume history of ancient Greece (1846-56), Grote in the present work "found in the Platonic writing veins of thought of which little account had been taken in the current view of Plato as an absolute idealist… The Plato brings out aspects of Greek thought in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. which philosophical historians have generally thrust into the background, and is thus not likely to lose its importance" (DNB VIII, 732). "After completing the History, Grote turned to Greek philosophy, and after nine years published in three formidable volumes Plato, and the other Companions of Sokrates (1865)… Grote provided detailed accounts of the arguments of each dialogue without, however, offering an interpretation of Platonic philosophy generally, for he discerned two quite different aspects of Plato's outlook, one open, enquiring and critical, which he approved, and another positive and dogmatic, which was unacceptable… These two perspectives were evident in Plato's two representations of Socrates" (ODNB).

Text clean, some light rubbing to joints and spine ends, tree-calf bindings sound. A beautifully bound, near-fine copy.