The Delightful History of Celestina the Faire. Daughter to the King of Thesalie. Shewing How she was inchaunted by the three Fairies: with the starne Adventures, Travels, Chivalries, Tournies, Combats, Victories, and Loves of divers wandring Princes and Knights errant, but especially of Sir Marcomyr.... done out of French into English

London: A.I. (Abel Jeffes?) for William Barley, 1596. Hardcover (rebound in leather). Very Good Condition. Rebound in modern red morocco signed "Hembra". Title and dedication (A1 and 2) in sympathetic facsimile, repairs to a few corners at end, final leaf chipped at edges and soiled, two corners with corner torn off but no loss of text, three leaves with a repaired tear into the text but without loss, a few light tide marks, other minor browning, creasing, but generally sound and attractive overall. Textually complete. Small quarto, 6 7/8" x 5 1/4". 1-244pp. Often attributed to the printer Adam Islip, more likely to be Abel Jeffes (who Latinized his initials to A.I.) STC 4910

Despite the name this is not a translation of Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea or of La Celestina by Rojas, but an unauthorized version of of Primaleon de Grecia (first printed in 1512) using de Vernassal's 1550 French translation which is the second part of Palmerin de Oliva (1511). Barley had been fined - both before and after this - for publishing without a license which likely impacted his changing of names and titles for this translation. The third part - and possibly the most famous - was added later by Francisco de Moraes and was titled Palmerin de Inglaterra. Along with Amadis of Gaul, it was the only chivalric romance to escape from Don Quixote's wrath. Munday had translated this and the other Palmerin works recently - also from the French version. Influential to the Jacobean playwrights (Jonson mentions Primaleon specifically) as well as Cervantes, and served as a pan European bridge to the rise of the novel in the 17th and 18th century.

Rare: 15 copies in OCLC (including a number of BL duplicates, some of which are incomplete) but only three outside of the UK and one in the US.

Provenance: Ken Rapoport (bookplate), purchased from Quaritch in 1990 ($2250) Size: Quarto (4to). Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilo. Category: Literature & Literary; Inventory No: 048682. (Inventory #: 048682)