Pentamerone First Edition - Richard F. Burton - Bauman Rare Books

Pentamerone

Richard F. BURTON | Gian Alessio ABBATTUTIS

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Pentamerone

“ONCE UPON A TIME THERE LIVED A PRINCE WHO WAS A WIDOWER, AND HE POSSESSED AN ONLY DAUGHTER”: SIR RICHARD BURTON’S TRANSLATION OF IL PENTAMERONE, THE FIRST FULL ENGLISH TRANSLATION

(BURTON, Richard F., translator) ABBATTUTIS, Gian Alessio. Il Pentamerone; or, the Tale of Tales. London: Henry and Co., 1893. Two volumes. Octavo, original black publisher’s cloth.

First edition of the first complete English translation of this collection of some of the world’s best-known folk and fairy tales.

Written by Giambattista Basile under the pen name Gian Alessio Abbattutis, these folk stories were first published in 1634-36, predating the tales of Charles Perrault by 50 years and those of the Brothers Grimm by 200. The Grimms would note that Basile’s work was “for a long time the best and richest [collection of fairy tales] that had been found by any nation.” Many of the tales found in Il Pentamerone resemble other famous fairy stories, such as “Rapunzel,” “Snow White,” “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty.” Originally written in Neapolitan dialect, the “Tale of Tales” came to be known as Il Pentamerone because it told 50 tales over five evenings in a setting similar to Boccaccio’s Decameron. A partial English translation by John Edward Taylor appeared in 1847; Burton’s was the first complete English translation. At Burton’s death in 1890, his widow Isabel burned a large quantity of his diaries and manuscripts. “Fortunately, still other manuscripts—innocuous in character to Isabel—escaped the flames, along with some small notebooks and a few other fragments… Among the surviving material were quite a number of books in manuscript form,” including Burton’s translation of Il Pentamerone, which Lady Burton published posthumously without the extensive footnotes that Burton usually included with his translations (Rice, 480). Also issued in a large-paper edition limited to 165 copies. Penzer, 155-56. Spink 94.

Interiors fine, cloth bindings lightly rubbed with wear to spine ends. A near-fine copy.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
Armorial Used to describe a binding bearing the coat of arms of the original owner, or with bookplates incorporating the owner’s arms.
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Boards Hard front and rear covers of a bound book which are covered in cloth, leather or paper. “Original boards” refers to cardboard-like front and back boards, from about 1700 to 1840, used as temporary protection for books before their purchasers would have them bound. Of particular value to collectors as evidence of a very early form of the book.
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Broadside Sheet printed on one side, typically for public display, usually larger than folio size (a folio being a broadside-size sheet printed on both sides and folded once, to make four pages).
Calf Binding material made from cowhide—versatile, durable, usually tan or brown in color, of smooth texture with no or little apparent grain. Readily marbled (“tree calf”), mottled, diced, colored, polished, tooled in gilt or blind, even scented (known as “russia”). Reverse calf, with a distinctive suede-like texture, is occasionally used.
Chromolithograph Lithograph printed in colors, typically three or more.
Collation Process by which the contents of a book are inspected for completeness, checking against internal evidence, the table of contents and/or plate list, and reference works. Also a shorthand bibliographical description of a book’s composition by its leaves and signatures, rather than its pages. A-C, for example, would indicate a quarto volume composed of three signatures or gatherings of eight pages each for a total of 24 pages.
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Doublure Pastedowns made not of paper but of leather, for decorative purposes.
Duodecimo (12MO) Smaller than an octavo, typically less than six inches tall; smaller formats, such as 24mo and 32mo, are uncommon.
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Wormhole Tiny pinhole-sized trails left by bookworms as they eat through a text block. Much more common in older books printed on handmade papers with a high rag content than in books printed on manufactured papers made from wood pulp with a higher acidic content.
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