The Vision of Hell & The Vision of Purgatory and Paradise. ALIGHIERI (Dante).

Two volumes bound into three (The Vision of Purgatory and Paradise divided into two).

Translated by the Reverend Henry Francis Cary and illustrated by Gustave Dore, complete with 135 plates. With critical explanatory notes, life of Dante and Chronology.

New edition. Folio. [337 x 265 x 120 mm]. [1]f, xxiv, 183, [2] pp, xii, 337 pp. Uniformly bound in black cloth, spines lettered in gilt, plain endleaves. (Extremities lightly bumped, a few minor marks to the boards and a small dent to the spine of The Vision of Purgatory).

London: Cassell and Company Limited, 1903

The odd foxing otherwise internally very clean. Overall a handsome set in very good condition.

Gustave Dore's illustrated edition of Dante's L'Inferno was first published by Hachette in 1861 and was subsequently followed by Le Purgatoire et le Paradis being published in 1868. 'Ordinarily Dore preferred not to be tied to specific details in the books that he illustrated, in the case of Dante, however, he gladly subjugated his imagination, aiming at literal renderings of the precise descriptions' (Gordon N. Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 1700-1914, p.334).

Stock no. ebc8934