12mo (leaf size: 150 x 86 mm), 189 pages; engraved emblematic title. Totally untrimmed copy, preserving all deckle edges, of the popular edition of the two Roman satirists Juvenal and Persius, with the profuse of Thomas Farnaby printed along the margins.
Thomas Farnaby (1575-1647), English schoolteacher and grammarian, ran a private school in London, and has been called "perhaps the most celebrated private schoolmaster in England"; his pupils included the politician and autobiographer Sir John Bramston, the diplomat Sir Richard Fanshawe, the courtier Thomas Henshawe, and the clergyman Henry Killigrew. The success of his establishment allowed Farnaby to devote himself to a long-held obsession: the systemization of the grammatical principles of classical Latin and Greek in print. He began with the satires of Juvenal and Persius (London 1612:STC14889), many times reprinted - Farnaby was in fact the earliest English commentator on Persius. Farnaby's editions of classical authors, which, besides Juvenal and Persius, included Seneca, Martial, Lucan, Ovid, Virgil, and Terence, were all accompanied by his annotations intended to render their works intelligible to schoolboys.
This copy belonged to Josue Caterman who, with his brother Charles, took over in 1820 the publishing house of Donat Casterman in Tournai founded in 1780; the house is still active today and known especially as the official publisher of Herge's Adventures of Tintin.
Morgan, Bibliography of Persius, 291; Schweiger 511.
Donated by E. K. Schreiber Rare Books, New York, New York.
Condition:
Original light blue boards, a bit soiled and worn at edges, copy entirely untrimmed, preserving all deckle edges; inside front cover is the bookplate of P[ierre] P[hilippe] C[onstant] Lammens (1762-1836), librarian of the University of Ghent; inside rear cover is the bookplate of Josue Casterman.