Inferno – Dante Alighieri; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – 1867 | First UK Edition

This first UK edition of The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri presents Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s monumental translation of Dante’s Inferno. Longfellow undertook the challenge of producing the first English blank-verse translation of the Divine Comedy, a line-by-line attempt at fidelity that popularized Dante among Victorian readers and quickly became a classroom and library standard. The translation was born of the meetings of the “Dante Club,” a gathering of Longfellow’s Cambridge peers including Charles Eliot Norton and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who collectively refined the work. Unlike earlier adaptations, his work aimed to convey both the structure and solemn cadence of the original Italian. Issued in the same year as the US edition, this George Routledge printing marked the arrival of Longfellow’s translation to Victorian Britain, coinciding with a rising interest in Dante among the Rossetti circle, John Ruskin, and other contemporaries.

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Inferno
• Author: Dante Alighieri
• Contributor: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Translator)
• Publisher: London: George Routledge & Sons
• Edition: First UK Edition, 1867
• Binding: Full leather with gilt embossing
• Format: Duodecimo (12mo), single volume
• Size: ~ 7.5 in x 5 in (19 cm x 12.7 cm)
• Collation: vii [4], 4-246
• Contents Include:
  • Dante’s Inferno, translated into English blank verse
  • Notes on the Inferno
  • Illustrations or influences from Boccaccio, Homer, Virgil, and Cicero
• Provenance: Handwritten inscription, “For dear Rosa with Uncle Henry’s kind love on her dear sister Fanny’s wedding day, Strood, 8 May 1867”

Condition:

Near Fine condition, bound in full leather with gilt embossing. The binding remains secure, with spine and boards showing minimal wear primarily at the corners. Hinges are secure and intact. The text block is clean and complete, without major flaws, and occasional foxing is limited to the flyleaves.

Why Collect This?

• First UK edition of Longfellow’s translation
• Presentation binding
• Collectible association with Longfellow and the Dante Club

Item Number: # 31130