Inferno – Dante / William Blake

S$135.00

Inferno – Dante / William Blake

S$135.00

Title: Inferno

Author: Dante Alighieri, Henry Francis Cary (trans), Robin Hamlyn (intro), William Blake (illus)

Publisher: The Folio Society, 1998.

Condition: Hardcover, giant cloth with slipcase. Slipcase has some wear and stains, but still sturdy. Book itself is in very good condition, near-perfect. Huge book.

This beautiful 151 page volume containing Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno” is translated by Henry Francis Cary and richly illustrated throughout by William Blake. With thirty-two full page, full-color reproductions of Blake’s art work in pen and ink, chalk, and watercolour, the reader achieves a deeper understanding of this poem, written by Dante beginning in 1307 through the time of his death.

From the Introduction: “The poem is written in three parts: The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradisio. It is about not only the poet’s own journey – it contains much autobiographical detail – towards God and salvation but also that of the reader. It is a voyage of the body and the mind, heart and soul, which takes us down into the pit of hell, up the mountain of purgatory, and through the boundless space of paradise, during which Dante is guided firstly by the ancient Roman poet Virgil, the, through paradise, by his love, Beatrice. The complexity and vastness of Dante’s concept, the scale on which he realised it, the richness of his language and imagery make the ‘Divine Comedy’ the greatest of all pieces of medieval literature and in Dante’s time it was soon widely read among educated Italians and then elsewhere in Europe.”

– from the publisher