Dante’s Divine Comedy: The Inferno. A Literal Prose Translation, with the Text of the Original collated from the best Editions, and explanatory Notes. By John A. Carlyle, M.D...

8° (200 x 120 mm). xlvi, [2], 432 pages. Frontispiece with portrait of Dante, engraved by R. Young. Italian text and English translation on facing pages. Contemporary half-red morocco, boards covered by marbled paper. Spine with five small raised bands, title in gilt lettering. Marbled pastedowns and flyleaves. A very fine copy, a few small spots at the frontispiece. On the recto of the second front flyleaf a cutting with a printed necrology of the translator John Aitken Carlyle ('His excellent translation of Dante's Inferno is the most notable literary work he has left behind him').

Provenance: Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford (1813-1884; small blind stamp on the title-page); Neta Bradley (ownership inscription on the verso of the first front flyleaf, dated '30. Nov: 1883, and the pencilled note 'Bequeated by her to Lord Milner, 22^nd December 1923'); the British politician and colonial administrator Alfred Viscount Milner K.G. (1854-1925; ex-libris on the front pastedown; see also the bibliographical pencilled note on the front flyleaf, 'Dante £ 150.00 1^st Carlyle edition Lord Milner's copy (bequeated by 'Neta' Bradley, Previously Mark Pattison's copy with blind stamp on title'); Livio Ambrogio collection.

The first edition of the literal prose translation made by John Aitken Carlyle (1801-1879), brother of the Scottish historian Thomas.