{"product_id":"story-of-the-odyssey-church-1892-first-edition-flaxman","title":"The Story of the Odyssey — Rev. Alfred J. Church | Seeley \u0026 Co. 1892 | First Edition | 16 Colour Plates after Flaxman | Decorated Cloth","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHomer, retold for Victorian children, and illustrated like a Greek vase.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eAlfred Church was a clergyman and Professor of Latin at University College London who spent the back half of his life doing something rather generous: making the classics readable for people who hadn't been beaten through them at school. This is his \u003cem\u003eOdyssey\u003c\/em\u003e, published by Seeley in 1892 and reviewed in \u003cem\u003eThe Classical Review\u003c\/em\u003e that same May — the first edition, alongside its companion volume on the Iliad.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe illustrations are what make it. They are taken after \u003cstrong\u003eJohn Flaxman\u003c\/strong\u003e, the great neoclassical draughtsman, and printed here as pale terracotta figures against solid black, in deliberate imitation of Greek red-figure vase painting. Nestor's sacrifice, Ulysses preparing to fight with Irus, the whole voyage rendered in clean outline. They look like nothing else on a shelf and they have aged far better than most Victorian book illustration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe binding is publisher's brick-red cloth, blocked in gilt with a Flaxman chariot scene on the front board and a laurel-wreathed portrait of Homer beneath it, with a small gilt lyre on the spine. Solid, handsome, unmistakably of its decade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition.\u003c\/strong\u003e Honest and well-read. The spine ends are frayed with some loss at the head, the cloth is rubbed along the edges and at the corners, and there is a dark stain and some scattered marks to the rear board. Internally toned with light foxing. \u003cstrong\u003eOne plate — Ulysses preparing to fight with Irus — has come loose from the binding and sits free in the book.\u003c\/strong\u003e It is present, clean and undamaged, but it is detached, and we would rather you knew that before ordering than after opening the parcel. The remaining plates are secure and the text block is sound.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eA lovely reading copy of a genuinely beautiful piece of Victorian book-making, priced for its faults.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eOne of a kind — when it's gone, it's gone.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\"\u003eFree UK delivery. Hand-wrapped in stiff card and packing paper.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Relics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56025411977601,"sku":null,"price":28.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0934\/7887\/9617\/files\/IMG_1144.jpg?v=1785678787","url":"https:\/\/www.novelrelics.co.uk\/products\/story-of-the-odyssey-church-1892-first-edition-flaxman","provider":"Novel Relics","version":"1.0","type":"link"}