The Heimskringla or The Sagas of The Norse Kings.: [Translated] From the Icelandic of Snorre Sturlason by Samuel Laing. Second Edition, Revised with Notes by Rasmus B. Anderson. With two maps.

'AMONG THE GREAT HISTORY BOOKS OF THE WORLD'
first edition thus 4 vols. tall 8vo. xxxvi, 398; xxviii, 410; xxviii, 416; xxviii, 418pp., 2 folding maps, title pages printed in red and black, original blue cloth pictorially blocked in gilt and black on front covers and titled and ruled in gilt on spines, top edges gilt, spines a trifle darkened, ends of spine of vol.I trifle scuffed. A very nice copy. Limited to numbered 520 copies (310 copies for England, 210 for American) market: this copy no 314. Rare in this condition.

The Heimskringla is an important collection of sixteen sagas containing an account of the history of Norway and a compendium of ancient Scandanavian mythology and poetry. First published in Stockholm in 1697 (Printing and the Mind of Man 138) in the original Icelandic, with translations in Swedish and Latin.
"Iceland is the main source of all Norse literature and history, and if one name must be chosen to stand for the whole body of literature which has come down, partly as writing proper and partly as written record of an earlier oral transmission, sometimes anonymous and sometimes with an authors name, the justest choice many be that of Snorri (or Snorro, or Snorre) Sturlason ... [whose] contribution to the literature of Iceland is of inestimable importance. ... This great collection of the Sagas of the Norse kings [contains a] series of connected biographies ... down to Sverri, King of Norway in 1177 ... In addition to this, there are early accounts of the western voyages of Erik the Red and Lief the Lucky and the early settlements in 'Vinland' as the Norsemen called the north-eastern coast of the American continent; and the equally daring eastern voyage of Sigurd the Crusader" [P.M.M.].

Samuel Laing (b. Orkney, 1780-1868), author and traveller, was educated in Edinburgh, served in the Peninsular War, travelled in Norway and Sweden and wrote on the economic and social conditions of Scandinavia. His translation of the Heimskringla, first published in 1844, was his most important work. Reportedly it inspired several of Longfellow's best poems, and Thomas Carlyle, indebted to it for his The Early Kings of Norway, stated that it deserved "were it once well edited, furnished with accurate maps, chronological summaries, &c. to be reckoned among the great history-books of the world".
Anderson, who prepared this edition during four years in Copenhagan as United States Minister to Denmark, also wrote Norse Mythology, Viking Tales of the North and other works.