Folio Society Numbered Limited Edition – DECAMERON by Giovanni Boccaccio

Boccaccio is considered along with Dante and Petrarch as part of the great triumvirate of Italian writers. All contemporaries, they established perhaps the first true post classical literary style in Italy, and thus in Western Civilization. The Decameron is Boccaccio’s most influential work and has inspired generations of writers all around the world. Perhaps most importantly to English literature the Decameron is believed to be the biggest influence on Chaucer (though perhaps through an anonymous translation) for the structure of his Canterbury Tales.

The work is a gathering of tales from several sources created by Boccaccio and written over several years, but finally collected under one title between 1349 and 1351. The story is of seven women and three men who have left Florence for ten days in order to avoid the plague. They depart for neighbouring villas and over the course of the next ten days each person tells a tale to entertain the others. The hundred tales are considered one of the greatest works in Italian literature and have influenced successive generations of writers for centuries.

• Translated by Robert Fagles

• Illustrated by John Buckland-Wright

• Limited to 1750 numbered copies

• Printed by Edmundsbury Press on Abbey Wove paper

• Bound by Real Lachenmaier in Wassa Goatskin and blocked with an abstract design by Jeff Clements, containing motifs of medieval windows and male and female symbols

• Separate leather titling label

• Gilded top edges and ribbon marker 

• Set in Poliphilus

• 709 pages with frontispiece and 20 aquatints

• Companion string bound booklet, THE HAPPY ART OF NARRATION. Readings of Boccaccio and the Decameron by John Dryden, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Percy Byssche Shelley and James Leigh Hunt.

• Presented in a buckram-bound solander box. Title blocked in gold on the spine

• Size 10" x 61/4"

CONDITION: Book is in VERY GOOD condition with the exception of some small marks to the extremities of the back board (see photos 4 to 10) and some rubbing to the gold top edge (see photos 5 & 12). Internally pages are clean and bright throughout. Binding is tight and square. No inscriptions, bookplates etc.. Companion booklet is in GOOD condition with marks to the front and back covers (see photos see photos 16 to 18). Solander box is in FINE condition with minimal shelf wear.

Due to the heavy weight of the book (approx. 3 kilos when packed), postage will be via Parcelforce Worldwide express48 (tracked and insured) courier service at a cost of £9.50

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Please ask any questions before buying

FR PB13

70PC