£75
ILLUSTRATOR’S OWN COPY, 16mo, pp. [48]. Original grey boards backed in grey cloth, front board printed in black, spine lettered in ink. A little spotting. Boards just a little soiled, small chip from paper cover of front board at spine-edge. Ownership inscription of Kenneth C. Scarff to front pastedown dated 1933, his ink-stamp to title-page, further line of Horace with translation in purple ink to rear pastedown.
The illustrator's copy of a slim and exceptionally rare volume of translations from Horace and Heine, with scant bibliographical detail. It appears to be entirely unrecorded in formal databases, though we have seen one other copy for sale. The Robert Blair responsible for the translations is not the poet best-remembered for his 1743 poem The Grave, as he had been in his own grave for more than 50 years before Heine was even born. The book was printed in London by S. Tinsley & Co, but the section of Heine translations is prefaced by reviews from the Scotsman and Oban Observer of their earlier (apparently otherwise unrecorded) appearance in print, which suggests a Scottish origin. On the other hand, the illustrator Scarff was born in Colchester and worked in Suffolk as an architect and draughtsman. This was his copy, with his bold ownership signature to the pastedown, and we have dated it from his inscription, when Scarff would have been 24 or 25.
