The Vision; or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.

London: printed for Taylor and Hessey,, 1819. The translation admired by Keats, Coleridge, and Ruskin Second and preferred edition of Cary's milestone verse translation, one of the most important of the Romantic era. Originally published in 1814 in sextodecimo and "in such small type that it was almost unreadable" (ODNB), it was here reprinted in an elegant large octavo and improved with corrections, an additional index, and notes. The translation took several years to complete. Cary started in January 1797 with the Purgatorio, turning his attention to the Inferno around 1800. The Inferno was published first, in 1805-6. In 1812, the full translation was finished. "Cary was not adept at self-promotion, and his translation initially attracted little attention... Then in October 1817 he made the acquaintance by chance of Coleridge at Littlehampton, and the praise which Coleridge gave to Cary's Dante in a lecture early in 1818 (reinforced by a favourable article by Ugo Foscolo in the Edinburgh Review) led to the sale of 1,000 copies in less than three months, and the publication of a second edition in 1819... This work is his chief claim to fame, and it remained a standard text well into the twentieth century, despite the fact that the number of translators of the work between 1782 and 1966 amounted to eighty-four. Cary's version was admired by Wordsworth, Keats, Lamb, Coleridge, Macaulay, and Ruskin, and in 1966 the author of a work on translations of the Divina commedia wrote 'Cary's version still holds its place as a minor classic, thanks to the fact that its author was a competent versifier with some poetic perception'" (ODNB). Three volumes, octavo (213 x 131 mm). Contemporary half-calf, spines with gilt-dotted raised bands, black morocco labels, marbled sides, endpapers, and edges. All volumes bound without half-titles. Contemporary ownership inscription of William Erskine Esq. at head of title page in vol. I, this is perhaps the Scottish orientalist and historian (1773-1852); occasional later annotations in pencil. Board edges a little rubbed, couple of minor scuffs and faint stains to leather, short split to front joint in vol. I (visible at title page), but firm, contents generally bright and clean. A very good set. Brunet II 514; Colomb de Batines, p. 267.