£2,500
LARGE PAPER COPY, 2 vols., folio, pp. [viii], 297, [1]; [iv], 336. Ruled in red throughout, title-pages ruled in red and green. Final blank discarded. Near-contemporary diced russia, boards bordered with a gilt rule, marbled endpapers, edges yellow. A little scattered soiling. Sometime rebacked, spine divided by double gilt rules and lettered in gilt direct, other compartments tooled centrally in gilt, boards a little rubbed to edges with a touch of wear to corners.
The rare large paper issue of the Foulis folio edition of The Odyssey, a landmark in Scottish printing and highly-praised by Dibdin, both in its 'sumptuous' presentation and its accuracy, as 'each sheet, before it was finally committed to the press, having being six times revised by various literary men'. This work and its companion Iliad from two years prior use a specially-cut double pica type from university type founder Alexander Wilson. 'In designing this fount Wilson made the first deliberate break from the tradition of copying Garamond's grec du roi, with all its ligatures and contractions, which had been strangling Greek type design for over 200 years' (Gaskell, The Book Collector 1952 p. 106). It was praised for its readability by Gibbon, who claimed 'I read Homer with more pleasure in the Glasgow edition. Through that fine medium, the poet's sense seems more beautiful and transparent.'
As often with the large-paper copies, this example has been ruled in red throughout, with more elaborate ruling to the title-pages, though it appears not to have been used for presentation as other large-paper examples we have seen were. As Gaskell confirms this large-paper issue is some 5cm larger in both dimensions than the regular issue, and is on better-quality paper.
