The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter

New York: Privately Printed. Near Fine in Good dust jacket. 1930. Limited/Numbered Edition. Hardcover. Slight abrasion to head edge of front pastedown. Slightest rubbing to spine ends. Ink stamp to rear endpaper. Lacks the publisher's slipcase. Dust jacket chipped at head and tail edges, split along spine, but together in a paper-backed mylar jacket.; This is Gaius Petronius Arbiter's classic satire of the extremes of amoral 'bro culture' in ancient Rome. Copy 625 of 1200 of this edition, "privately printed" during a time of US censorship. The origins of the text are vague, but are believed to be the work of Gaius Petronius Arbiter, Roman Emperor Nero's advisor on matters of taste, fashion, luxury, and extravagance. This book is his satirical retelling of the self-indulgent extremes of immoral living. The manuscript was fragmented, not contiguous, and there are only assumptions about what fragments may be missing and how they linked the known fragments. This edition's 16 chapters are 16 of the book's fragments in what scholars believe to be in logical order and the work as a whole is often considered to be the first novel, though not in the modern form. The title page states, "Translation ascribed to Oscar Wilde," but that is likely nonsense. This edition may be a reprint of the Charles Carrington edition that attributed its translation to Wilde, but there appears to be no scholarship that supports that assertion. "Privately Printed," with no publisher stated, to obfuscate the edition's origin during a time of US censorship and efforts to force a morality on the public. So... why should you read this book? The protagonists were men who were not monied, frequently destitute due to their own actions, but had enough societal privilege to evade most consequences of careening through life as morality-free, self-centered sociopaths. The book's narrative approach documents the protagonists' personal excesses of every type: gluttony, violence, staggering inebriation, faithless relationships that shifted with the wind, sex with anything on two legs, political posturing, and manipulation of everyone they encountered. It was 'all in a day's work' for the 0.1% uppermost class of the ancient Roman world. With that kind of story line, it's not surprising that the book was adapted into a 1969 film by Federico Fellini. Bound in slick, black cloth over boards with gilt titling to front and spine. Printed on light buff mould-made paper with the head of the text block roughly cut and the fore and tail edges uncut. The dust jacket is chipped, split, and Good condition, but together and presentable in a paper-backed mylar jacket. This is an attractive, clean, Near Fine copy that's ready to astonish and amuse you, if I may take the liberty of personifying the book.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; [1],2-236 pages .