Folio Archives 336: The Oxford Classical Dictionary – LIMITED EDITION 2001
TalkFolio Society Devotees
Join LibraryThing to post.
1wcarter
The Oxford Classical Dictionary edited by Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. – LIMITED EDITION 2001
This beautifully bound edition is an unusual choice for review because it is unillustrated, but the scholarship and thousands of erudite and fascinating entries that cover virtually every significant person, god, place and activity around the Mediterranean from 900 BC to 500 AD make it worth owning and perusing.
Open at almost any page and you will find an entry of interest, be it Herod the Great or Zeus the god, a now insignificant village but in the past a great city, or the reverse, a great city now that was almost unknown 2000 years ago. Religious rites, activities of daily living, marriage, death and everything in between is covered.
I find it a delightful (if heavy) book to just open at random when passing its place on the bookshelf to read a few entries – all are fascinating in their own way. This is the way in which entries for this review have been chosen.
The lvi + 1640 page Folio Society limited edition of the OCD also marks the start of an ongoing tradition of specially bound and produced limited editions that has persisted ever since. This is a standard copy of the 3rd. edition of the OCD printed by the Oxford University Press, but specially bound by the FS with a green Wassa goatskin spine and fore-edge, and green silk boards that are gilt tooled. There is gilt lettering and decoration to the spine, which also has four raised bands. The top edge is gilt, there are two yellow ribbon place-markers, specially made endpapers showing carvings on a 3rd. century sarcophagus and a tipped in FS colophon stating that the edition is limited to 1000 copies. It is all housed in a gilt titled green cloth slipcase that measures 26x21cm. It is printed on quite thin paper but is still a very chunky tome.
The rest of the book is the same as a standard OUP edition, with a preface by the editors, Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. This is the only edition of the book produced by the Folio Society and is now available on the secondary market at very reasonable prices, although when issued in 2001 it cost £135.
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.
This beautifully bound edition is an unusual choice for review because it is unillustrated, but the scholarship and thousands of erudite and fascinating entries that cover virtually every significant person, god, place and activity around the Mediterranean from 900 BC to 500 AD make it worth owning and perusing.
Open at almost any page and you will find an entry of interest, be it Herod the Great or Zeus the god, a now insignificant village but in the past a great city, or the reverse, a great city now that was almost unknown 2000 years ago. Religious rites, activities of daily living, marriage, death and everything in between is covered.
I find it a delightful (if heavy) book to just open at random when passing its place on the bookshelf to read a few entries – all are fascinating in their own way. This is the way in which entries for this review have been chosen.
The lvi + 1640 page Folio Society limited edition of the OCD also marks the start of an ongoing tradition of specially bound and produced limited editions that has persisted ever since. This is a standard copy of the 3rd. edition of the OCD printed by the Oxford University Press, but specially bound by the FS with a green Wassa goatskin spine and fore-edge, and green silk boards that are gilt tooled. There is gilt lettering and decoration to the spine, which also has four raised bands. The top edge is gilt, there are two yellow ribbon place-markers, specially made endpapers showing carvings on a 3rd. century sarcophagus and a tipped in FS colophon stating that the edition is limited to 1000 copies. It is all housed in a gilt titled green cloth slipcase that measures 26x21cm. It is printed on quite thin paper but is still a very chunky tome.
The rest of the book is the same as a standard OUP edition, with a preface by the editors, Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. This is the only edition of the book produced by the Folio Society and is now available on the secondary market at very reasonable prices, although when issued in 2001 it cost £135.
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.
