THE VISION; OR HELL, PURGATORY AND PARADISE OF DANTE ALIGHIERI. Translated by the Rev. Henry Francis Cary, A.M.

London: Printed for Taylor and Hessey, Fleet Street, 1819. 3 volumes. A LARGE PAPER COPY of the FIRST TRADE EDITION of the FIRST MODERN TRANSLATION of Dante into English in its complete form including all the parts of the trilogy. Preceded only by the privately printed edition issued by the author. Additionally, for this edition is affixed a Life of Dante, Notes and an Index. Tall 8vo, still bound in the original printer’s boards, untrimmed and uncut. VERY RARE THUS. lii, 303; xi, 309; 297, (28) index, (6) ads pp. and with all three half-titles as called for. A very rarely encountered set in excellent condition, essentially as pristine internally. The text-blocks are in wonderful condition, very finely preserved, the original boards are rubbed and the backstrips mostly missing on Vols I and III, but this is a set which has never been fiddled with and remains entirely unsophisticated and as originally offered from the printer. RARE FIRST EDITION AND COMPLETE SET IN ORIGINAL PRINTER’S BOARDS. ONE OF THE GREAT BOOKS OF ALL TIME.
Cary’s famous translation has long been considered the first modern rendering of Dante’s timeless epic into English. While previous English translations prior to Cary’s had been accomplished in the 18th century, none were able to transfer into the English language, the beauty and richness of language for which Dante has forever been revered.
It took Cary many years to make the complete translation. Indeed, the parts of the COMEDY were released over a number of years from 1805 on. Cary was influenced greatly by the Romantics and by Coleridge in particular. Though the text was finished in mid-1812, Cary was unable to secure a publisher and was, after some years, obliged even with his very modest means to publish the work at his own expense. It at first excited little attention, but it came under great notice primarily because of the applause of Coleridge whom Cary had met while pacing the beach reading Homer to his son. ‘Sir,’ said Coleridge, attracted by the sound of the Greek, ‘yours is a face I should know. I am Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”
“During the rest of the day, the wondrous stranger discoursed on Homer making young Cary ‘feel as one from whose eyes the scales were just removed,’ and in
the evening carried home the translation of Dante, of which he had never even heard. The next day he was able to repeat whole pages, and his winter course of lectures gave it celebrity.
The new and first edition published by a general publisher was secured in 1819, and ever since,...it has remained the translation which, on Dante’s name being mentioned, occurs first to the mind.” Cary’s translation allowed the rediscovery of Dante’s masterpiece by the British of the Romantic Era and it was praised not only by Coleridge, but by Shelley, Byron and Wordworth as well.
Copies of this, the first generally published edition of the book in its original three-decker format are extremely scarce. This is a still more scarce large paper copy As to Dante himself, “Dante’s theme, the greatest yet attempted in poetry, was to explain and justify the Christian cosmos through the allegory of a pilgrimage. To him comes Virgil, the symbol of philosophy, to guide him through the two lower realms of the next world, which are divided according to the classifications of the ‘Ethics’ of Aristotle. Hell is seen as an inverted cone with its point where lies Lucifer fixed in ice at the centre of the world, and the pilgrimage from it a climb to the foot of and then up the Purgatorial Mountain. Along the way Dante passes Popes, Kings and Emperors, poets, warriors and citizens of Florence, expiating the sins of their life on earth. On the summit is the Earthly Paradise where Beatrice meets them and Virgil departs. Dante is now led through the various spheres of heaven, and the poem ends with a vision of the Deity. The audacity of his theme, the success of its treatment, the beauty and majesty of his verse, have ensured that his poem never lost its reputation. The picture of divine justice is entirely unclouded by Dante’s own political prejudices, and his language never falls short of what he describes.” PMM