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Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
Thucydides. The Hystory Writtone by Thucidides the Athenyan of the Warre, whiche was betwene the Peloponesians and the Athenyans.
London: Imprinted [by William Tylle], 1550.
First edition in English, translated by Thomas Nicolls from Claude de Seyssel's French version; title page printed within large woodcut compartment bearing the initials of Queen Elizabeth I; printed in black letter, single column throughout; errata leaf present in this copy (possibly supplied); ex libris John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle (1662-1711) with his engraved armorial bookplate in an undated version [some are dated 1702] pasted to verso of title; bound in full 19th century crushed brown morocco by an Edinburgh binder; corners bumped, binding rubbed, aeg., 11 3/4 x 7 3/4 in.
Long before Hobbes translated Thucydides, Nicolls provided his readers with this English version. Dedicated to Edward VI's tutor, Sir John Cheke, and working from Seyssel's French version, itself translated not from the Greek but from Lorenzo Valla's Latin text. "Nevertheless Nicolls succeeded in making a book which conveyed the meaning of Thucydides after a fashion; and he wrote at a time when the English language, whatever its inadequacies as a vehicle of classical thought, had a freshness and immediacy of its own which the more scholarly English of later ages often lacked." (Quoted from Gabriella Slomp's Thomas Hobbes, Taylor & Francis, 2017.)
