?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
Lefèvre, Raoul (active 1460) trans. William Caxton (1422-1491) The Avncient Historie, of the Destruction of Troy.
London: Printed by Thomas Creede [and Valentine Simmes], 1596 [i.e. 1597].
Quarto, incomplete, lacking fifty-two leaves, consisting of two preliminaries (title present), twenty-eight text leaves, and the last three signatures (save two leaves); contents stained, dog-eared, and with other defects; bound in contemporary or near-contemporary sheepskin over boards, binding heavily worn, spine reflexed, 7 1/4 x 5 1/8 in.
This work is very rare at auction. The English translation of Lefèvre's Recueil des Histoires de Troye translated and printed by Caxton, was the first book ever published in the English language. Also one of Shakespeare's sources for Troilus and Cressida, only four editions were published in the 16th century, and one in the 15th century. STC 15379; ESTC S106754; two copies listed worldwide: Bodleian & Folger, both defective.
