Beowulf. An Epic Poem
- London: William Pickering, 1849
London: William Pickering, 1849. First edition in English verse. Very Good. Second edition in English, fourth overall, but the first edition to present the influential poem in English verse. Complete: xlvi, 159, [1] pp., with the folding map frontispiece. Publisher's brown cloth, rebacked with original spine laid down and retaining original paper spine label. Spine chipped, with some loss to cloth and label. Some discoloration to cloth, mostly to lower board, and some bumping to edges of boards. A bit of minor foxing to last few leaves, otherwise extremely clean throughout. A Very Good, fresh copy of an important early edition of Beowulf.
Written between the eighth and eleventh centuries, Beowulf is cited as the oldest - and most important - surviving poem in Old English. The poem follows the titular Geat hero as he comes to the aid of the Danish King to defeat the monster Grendel and, afterwards, Grendel's mother. Returning home, Beowulf is crowned King of the Geats and rules until his death, being fatally wounded slaying a dragon.
After being discovered in the collection of sixteenth-century scholar Laurence Nowell, the manuscript containing Beowulf found its way into Sir Robert Bruce Cotton's famous library. The story is known in just that single manuscript, which unfortunately was badly damaged in the (aptly named) Ashburnham House fire in 1731. Danish historian and scholar Grimur Jonsson Thorkelin studied the manuscript in 1786 and published the first translation of the poem in 1815 into Latin. The poem was then translated into Danish by Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig in 1820, and the first English translation was done by John Mitchell Kemble in 1837. Kemble's translation, done in prose, was highly literal and archaic; Wackerbath's translation, offered here, restores the poetry of Beowulf for English-language readers.
Beowulf is now justly famous, in part, through the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, who became one of the poem's foremost scholars. The poem would exercise a considerable influence on him when he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It has continued to entrance modern readers and writers, with a recent translation done by Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. Very Good.
Written between the eighth and eleventh centuries, Beowulf is cited as the oldest - and most important - surviving poem in Old English. The poem follows the titular Geat hero as he comes to the aid of the Danish King to defeat the monster Grendel and, afterwards, Grendel's mother. Returning home, Beowulf is crowned King of the Geats and rules until his death, being fatally wounded slaying a dragon.
After being discovered in the collection of sixteenth-century scholar Laurence Nowell, the manuscript containing Beowulf found its way into Sir Robert Bruce Cotton's famous library. The story is known in just that single manuscript, which unfortunately was badly damaged in the (aptly named) Ashburnham House fire in 1731. Danish historian and scholar Grimur Jonsson Thorkelin studied the manuscript in 1786 and published the first translation of the poem in 1815 into Latin. The poem was then translated into Danish by Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig in 1820, and the first English translation was done by John Mitchell Kemble in 1837. Kemble's translation, done in prose, was highly literal and archaic; Wackerbath's translation, offered here, restores the poetry of Beowulf for English-language readers.
Beowulf is now justly famous, in part, through the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, who became one of the poem's foremost scholars. The poem would exercise a considerable influence on him when he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It has continued to entrance modern readers and writers, with a recent translation done by Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. Very Good.
Details
Title
Beowulf. An Epic Poem
Author
Wackerbarth, A. Diedrich (translator)
Condition
Very Good
Publisher
William Pickering: London
Date
1849
Edition
First edition in English verse