Author(s): Virgil

Art, Music & Literature

Secondhand. With 72 illustrations by Francis Cleyn engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar.

Virgil’s Aeneid, translated by John Dryden, was first published in 1697. It was illustrated with a series of engravings, designed by Francis Cleyn and executed by Wenceslaus Hollar and Pierre Lambert, which had originally adorned John Ogilby’s translation of 1654. This edition has referred to George Saintsbury’s revised and corrected text of 1892, while the engravings have been reproduced from the first edition of Dryden’s translation.

From the smouldering ruins of Troy, Aeneas flees the victorious Greeks. Harried by the goddess Juno, he leads a small band in search of a new destiny: to found the kingdom of Rome. Written in the wake of the Roman civil wars, Virgil’s epic is one of the founding books of Western culture. Aeneas’ visit to the underworld, Dido’s suicide, the death of Priam at the altar – these are among the most powerful and moving moments in all literature.