The New Life [La Vita Nuova]

Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. 8vo. 250 x 185 mm., [9 ¾ x 7 ¼ inches]. iv + 149pp. Publisher’s green cloth over heavy boards with beveled edges, gold stamping on spine. Book Very Good: textblock very clean with a handful of light marginal pencil vertical delineations; previous owner’s name and dated inscription on first page “1/XI/28." Top edge of textblock gilt. Front hinge shows incipient cracking, but remains solid; all corners bumped and abraded; head and foot of spine worn; some mild stains, scratches and abrasions on green cloth.

First Edition Thus. Dante’s Vita Nuova in the admired—and for many years, held as definitive—translation (truncated) by Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908). His name would become synonymous with Harvard Brahmin literati in the late 19th century. He came to Italy early in his life, and spent much of his late twenties there for his health, studying the language and writing about his experiences.

In 1859, he published a small edition of his Vita Nuova translation; in 1860 he published his Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. In 1865 he joined the Dante club founded by Longfellow for the purpose of discussing Longfellow’s own Divine Comedy translation. Norton’s Dante-philia was renewed and Ticknor and Fields published this Vita Nuova edition just when Longfellow’s Divine Comedy appeared. Norton would publish his own translation of the Divine Comedy some 30 years later. In addition to the multiple professorial, scholarly, and social honors Norton received in the United States, he was awarded the Order of the Crown of Italy for his Italian studies. . (Inventory #: 1284)