In Folio: Rare Volumes in the Stanford University Libraries

OVID, 43 B.C.-17 OR 18 A.D.

Ovid's Metamorphoses, in Fifteen Books. Translated by the Most Eminent Hands. Adorned with Sculptures.

London: Printed for Jacob Tonson at Shakespear's Head, 1717.

The fifteen books of Ovid’s Metamorphoses consist of tales of transformations of the gods, beginning with the creation of the world from chaos and ending with Caesar’s transformation into a star in the heavens. Ovid's masterpiece is at once a poetic explanation of change and a vast treasury of myth, and it enjoyed a tremendous popularity during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. First translated into English by Arthur Golding (1536?-1605?), Metamorphoses was widely read and quoted in England throughout the Renaissance and afterwards, a work virtually always in print in either Latin or English.

Translators in this edition include John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Samuel Garth, William Congreve, and John Gay. This was a lavish production by Jacob Tonson (1656-1736), each plate being subscribed for by a member of the aristocracy and so identified at the bottom. Tonson issued the same text and illustrations (reengraved on smaller plates) in a smaller format edition the same year.

 

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