John Milton. JOANNIS MILTONII ANGLI, EPISTOLARUM FAMILIARUM LIBER UNUS: QUIBUS ACCESSERUNT, EJUSDEM, JAM OLIM IN COLLEGIO ADOLESCENTIS, PROLUSIONES QUAEDAM ORATORIAE. London: Impensis Brabazoni Aylmeri sub Signo Trium Columbarum Via vulgo Cornhill dicta, 1674. First edition. Full vellum, label with gilt on spine, marbled endpapers, all edges speckled. 8vo; A-K8; 155, [3]pp. Text in Latin. With ornaments and decorated initials, errata, initial and final blank, and final advertisement leaf. ESTC R13511; Wickenheiser 327.

6 x 4 in.

From the Collection of Professor Roberto Severino, Washington, D.C.

The title of this important book translates to Book I of the Familiar Letters; to Which Are Added Certain Prolusions of the Oratorical Art by the Same Person, When He Was a Young Man in College. According to Thomas Corns, "Shortly before his death, Milton gathered and prepared for press a collection of his private Latin correspondence extending back to the 1620s and exchanged with friends, pupils, and acquaintances. . . . The letters demonstrate the eloquence of his less public neo-Latin." (The Milton Encyclopedia, 111-112.). According to Wickenheiser, this volume also includes Milton's "earliest writing, the Cambridge Prolusions, written when he was a student." (327, p. 99)

Boards with common warping; edgewear, especially to upper board with vellum starting to separate at edge and light cracking, sticker on spine; strong binding; pages toned and foxed, some with frayed edges or corners and light grime, but most extremely crisp. A very good copy of this important volume. Rare, especially at auction.