1933 Nice Bayntun Binding- La Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri, Illustrated
An elegant 1933 bilingual edition of Dante’s complete Divine Comedy, handsomely bound by Bayntun of Bath in full red morocco with gilt decoration and all edges gilt.
Author: Dante Alighieri. Italian text edited by H. Oelsner. English translations by J. A. Carlyle, Thomas Okey and P. H. Wicksteed.
Title: La Divina Commedia: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso.
Publisher: London & Toronto, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1933.
Edition: First edition thus. First published in this edition in 1933, bringing together in one volume the Italian and English texts originally prepared for the “Temple Classics” edition of 1899–1901.
Language: Parallel text in Italian and English.
Pages: Inferno: 401 pages; Purgatorio: 441 pages; Paradiso: 418 pages, with notes, appendices, chronologies, editorial matter and indexes.
Size: 7.5 x 5 inches.
Binding: Very good to near fine fine binding by Bayntun of Bath, England, signed by the binder. Full bright red morocco with double gilt fillet borders to both boards; spine richly decorated in gilt compartments with contrasting blue and green leather title labels lettered in gilt. Elaborately gilt inner dentelles, marbled endpapers and all edges gilt. Binding firm, square and attractive, showing only light rubbing and minor surface marks consistent with careful use, as shown. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Near fine. Exceptionally clean, bright and well preserved throughout, with a tight text block and strong hinges. Italian and English texts are printed on facing pages, supplemented by extensive scholarly notes and commentary. A previous owner’s name, “William P. Fox ’67,” appears on the first endpaper, as shown. Accompanied by a freely inserted bookplate reading “From the Library of Donald Justice and Jean Ross Justice.”
Illustrations: Complete with the maps, astronomical diagrams, tables and explanatory figures called for in the text, including diagrams of Dante’s cosmology and maps relating to the geographical and historical references throughout the Commedia.
Estimate: USD 500–600.
The book: This handsome one-volume edition presents all three cantiche of Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, with the original Italian printed alongside respected English translations by J. A. Carlyle, Thomas Okey and P. H. Wicksteed. The Italian text was edited by H. Oelsner. Originally prepared for the celebrated “Temple Classics” series at the turn of the twentieth century, the texts were gathered into this substantial single-volume edition by J. M. Dent in 1933.
Beyond the poem itself, the edition is notably scholarly, incorporating explanatory notes, chronologies, editorial essays, maps, astronomical diagrams and tables designed to illuminate Dante’s complex theological, historical and cosmological framework. The distinguished Bayntun binding transforms this already substantial edition into a particularly attractive collector’s copy.
The author: Dante Alighieri (c. 1265–1321) was the Florentine poet whose Divine Comedy stands among the foundational works of European literature. Written in the vernacular rather than Latin, the poem helped establish the Tuscan dialect as the basis of literary Italian and profoundly influenced subsequent poetry, theology and imaginative literature.
Through the three realms of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, Dante created an immense moral and cosmological architecture populated by historical figures, contemporaries, classical authors and characters from Christian tradition. The result is at once a spiritual journey, political commentary, philosophical inquiry and one of the defining achievements of medieval literature.