Published in Paris during the year MDCCLΧΧI (1771). 

Hardcover binding. Leather spine. Bilingual edition; text in latin & french. 

486 pages, 17.5 x 11 x 3 cm.

Acceptable condition; as is (serious inner binding issues - book does not open properly, binding not so tight, almost in pieces, needs to be handled with care to avoid its splitting in pieces, first blank leaf torn and missing, piece of paper missing from some leaves' margin generally not affecting text, foxing, yellow/brown/water-/ink- stains, minor tears, few holes on inner margin of some leaves not affecting text, few creases on leaves' corners/edges, minor piece of paper missing from few leaves' margin/corners not affecting text at all, some smell, worn cover where stains, scratches/cracks, few holes, cracks near spine, cracks on boards' edges, rubbed/discolored/splotchy parts, fragile parts, pieces missing from boards' corners/edges, &c).

Shipping costs (registered mail): $16 worldwide.

Publius Terentius Afer (c. 195/185 – c. 159? BC), better known in English as Terence, was a Roman playwright during the Roman Republic, of Berber descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on, impressed by his abilities, freed him. Terence apparently died young, probably in Greece or on his way back to Rome. All of the six plays Terence wrote have survived. One famous quotation by Terence reads: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me." This appeared in his play Heauton Timorumenos. Terence's date of birth is disputed; Aelius Donatus, in his incomplete Commentum Terenti, considers the year 185 BC to be the year Terentius was born; Fenestella, on the other hand, states that he was born ten years earlier , in 195 BC. He may have been born in or near Carthage or in Greek Italy to a woman taken to Carthage as a slave. Terence's cognomen Afer suggests he lived in the territory of the Libyan tribe called by the Romans Afri near Carthage prior to being brought to Rome as a slave. This inference is based on the fact that the term was used in two different ways during the republican era: during Terence's lifetime, it was used to refer to non-Carthaginian Libyco-Berbers, with the term Punicus reserved for the Carthaginians. Later, after the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, it was used to refer to anyone from the land of the Afri (Tunisia and its surroundings). It is therefore most likely that Terence was of Libyan descent, considered ancestors to the modern-day Berber peoples. In any case, he was sold to P. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, who educated him and later on, impressed by Terence's abilities, freed him. Terence then took the nomen "Terentius," which is the origin of the present form. He was a member of the so-called Scipionic Circle. When he was 25, Terence travelled to Greece and never returned. It is mostly believed that Terence died during the journey, but this cannot be confirmed. Before his disappearance he exhibited six comedies which are still in existence. According to some ancient writers, he died at sea. Like Plautus, Terence adapted Greek plays from the late phases of Attic comedy. Terence wrote in a simple conversational Latin, pleasant and direct. Aelius Donatus, Jerome's teacher, is the earliest surviving commentator on Terence's work. Terence's popularity throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is attested to by the numerous manuscripts containing part or all of his plays; the scholar Claudia Villa has estimated that 650 manuscripts containing Terence's work date from after AD 800. The mediaeval playwright Hroswitha of Gandersheim claims to have written her plays so that learned men had a Christian alternative to reading the pagan plays of Terence, while the reformer Martin Luther not only quoted Terence frequently to tap into his insights into all things human but also recommended his comedies for the instruction of children in school. Terence's six plays are: Andria (The Girl from Andros) (166 BC) / Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law) (165 BC) / Heauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormentor) (163 BC) / Phormio (161 BC) / Eunuchus (161 BC) / Adelphoe (The Brothers) (160 BC). The first printed edition of Terence appeared in Strasbourg in 1470, while the first certain post-antique performance of one of Terence's plays, Andria, took place in Florence in 1476. There is evidence, however, that Terence was performed much earlier. The short dialogue Terentius et delusor was probably written to be performed as an introduction to a Terentian performance in the 9th century (possibly earlier). Due to his clear and entertaining language, Terence's works were heavily used by monasteries and convents during the Middle Ages and The Renaissance. Scribes often learned Latin through the meticulous copying of Terence's texts. Priests and nuns often learned to speak Latin through reenactment of Terence's plays, thereby learning both Latin and Gregorian chants. Although Terence's plays often dealt with pagan material, the quality of his language promoted the copying and preserving of his text by the church. The preservation of Terence through the church enabled his work to influence much of later Western drama. Terence's plays were a standard part of the Latin curriculum of the neoclassical period. US President John Adams once wrote to his son, "Terence is remarkable, for good morals, good taste, and good Latin... His language has simplicity and an elegance that make him proper to be accurately studied as a model." Two of the earliest English comedies, Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle, are thought to parody Terence's plays. Due to his cognomen Afer, Terence has long been identified with Africa and heralded as the first poet of the African diaspora by generations of writers, including Juan Latino, Phyllis Wheatley, Alexandre Dumas, Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. American playwright Thornton Wilder based his novel The Woman of Andros on Terence's Andria. Questions as to whether Terence received assistance in writing or was not the actual author have been debated over the ages, as described in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica: “[In a prologue to one of his plays, Terence] meets the charge of receiving assistance in the composition of his plays by claiming as a great honour the favour which he enjoyed with those who were the favorites of the Roman people. But the gossip, not discouraged by Terence, lived and throve; it crops up in Cicero and Quintilian, and the ascription of the plays to Scipio had the honour to be accepted by Montaigne and rejected by Diderot.”

Hecyra (English: The Mother-in-Law) is a comedic Latin play by the early Roman playwright Terence. The Hecyra was a failure at its first two stagings. The first in 165 BC was disrupted, when a rumor spread that a tightrope-walker and boxers were about to perform. In 160 BC the production was cancelled when the theater was stormed by a group of rowdy gladiator fans. It was presented successfully only at its third attempt later that same year. A musical phrase accompanying a single line of Hecyra was copied in the 18th century by Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli from a 10th-century manuscript and was for a long time believed to be all that remains of the entire body of ancient Roman music. However, musicologist Thomas J. Mathiesen comments that it is no longer believed to be authentic. Hecyra is based on plays by Apollodorus of Carystus and Menander. The son of the elderly Laches and wife Sostrata, a young man named Pamphilus is enamored with a prostitute, Bacchis, yet in a drunken fit one night, he decides to debauch a young woman named Philumena, the daughter of Phidippus and Myrrhina. After a struggle, he rapes Philumena and from her finger tears a ring that he afterwards gives to his girlfriend, Bacchis. After some hesitation, Pamphilus finally consents to an arranged marriage. By chance, the woman chosen for him is Philumena, and she alone knows that she had been raped by an unidentified man, and she hopes that her disgrace is concealed. After the young man and woman are married, Bacchis rejects Pamphilus, and the latter becomes more and more enamored with his new wife. Next, Pamphilus is called away from the city, and Philumena finds herself pregnant from the rape. She fears detection, and she especially avoids her mother-in-law, Sostrata. She returns to her parents' home, where Sostrata seeks her, but Philumena claims illness and will not allow the mother-in-law inside the house. Pamphilus returns home during the birth of the baby, and the situation brings him great distress. Myrrhina, the wife of Phidippus, then begs him to keep the pregnancy a secret, but he declines to take back Philumena. Laches then states that Pamphilus is still enamored with Bacchis, but this supposition is proven untrue. It is then that the stolen ring is discovered on Bacchis's finger, and Pamphilus realizes the baby is his: He happily takes back his wife and new son.

Phormio is a Latin comic play by the early Roman playwright Terence, based on a play by Apollodorus of Carystus. It was first performed at the Ludi Romani of 161 BC. The play is named after the character Phormio, who is a cunning "parasite" (that is, a person who makes a living by performing services for richer people). The plot is set in Athens, and revolves around the love affairs of two young men, Phaedria and Antipho, who are cousins. Phaedria is in love with a harp-player called Pamphila, but doesn't have the money to buy her from her owner Dorio; Antipho wishes to marry a free but poor girl called Phanium, unaware that she is in fact Phaedria's half sister as the result of an affair between Phaedria's father Chremes and a Lemnian woman. By clever legal wrangling, Phormio manages to help both young men to obtain their wishes, and in addition extracts a large sum of money from the two fathers. Other characters in the play are Chremes' brother Demipho, who tries to get his son Antipho to dissolve his marriage to Phanium; Nausistrata, Chremes' wife, who punishes her husband when she discovers about his secret affair with Phanium's mother by making her son Phaedria master of the household; Sophrona, former nurse and guardian of Phanium; and Geta, an old slave who is given the task of looking after the two young men while their fathers are away.