C. Cornelii Taciti [Tacitus]

OPERA STUDIIS SOCIETATIS BIPONTINAE ACCURATA TOMAS SECUNUS C. Cornelii Taciti [The works (opera) of C. Cornelius Tacitus (C. Cornelii Taciti) carefully attended to (accurata) through the efforts (studiis) of the Bipontine Society Second Volume (in the RARE ORIGINAL BINDERY DUST JACKET)] [ A LITERARY LANDMARK]

Zweibrücken: Societas Bipontina, 1779. First Biponti Edition, First Printing, First Issue. Hardcover. A Very Good + to Near Fine copy of the second Volume in the Bipontine Series, being a work by C. Cornelii Taciti [Tacitus]. This Volume presents his Drusus Caesarum Parens [Druze parent of the Caesars]. This is a remarkably nice copy of the work bound in marbled paper with a red spine label affixed and shows wear to each board's leading corners as well as some wear to the spine ends and side edges (with some associated wear there as well). Each visible edge of the closed page block is stained red and the top edge shows some modest wear. The front free endpaper's recto shows a small notation in black as well as as a presumed prior owner's name and a bit more information. This copy wears the EXTRAORDINARILY RARE TWO-PIECE BINDERY DUST JACKET which remains in remarkably nice condition showing some edge wear as well as some small to modest tears and a small stain to the spine's lower section. The jacket was made from two sheets of paper pasted together (a technique which greatly contributed to the jacket's durability). The outer layer is made from brown paste paper and the attached inner layer in otherwise unused text scrap. A note in blue ink appears on the outer layer's recto. The jacket's spine exterior hosts a near complete green label with information about the book handwritten upon it. The volume's red spine label is lined and lettered in gilt. The rare dust jacket has a total of fourteen (14) flaps with the top spine flap being detached but present and the bottom spine flap holding only partially. A NOTE ABOUT THIS TYPE OF DUST JACKET: As stated by Mark Godburn [author of "Nineteenth-Century Dust-Jackets" (2016) and a noted expert on dust jackets] in a recent article published by the ABAA: "The practice of issuing dust jackets on new books is generally thought to have begun with the introduction of publishers’ bindings around 1820. Books issued before then (and after) in provisional bindings are believed to have neither needed nor received jackets. But while this understanding of early jacket use has long seemed correct for British, American and European books, recently examined evidence shows that dust jackets were issued long before the 1820s in the German states and probably elsewhere in Europe. Most of the surviving examples of these jackets, including the earliest ones, are of German origin, which is where this previously undocumented and all but unknown chapter of book history begins." Godburn also notes that the earliest German Bindery Dust Jacket known to exist is on a 1766 copy of "Methodus Doctrinae Mecade" which bears a prior owner's signature dated 1777. He cites another book dated 1769 in a jacket lined with printed waste paper [itself] dated 1771, with the same owner's signature and the same date (1777). BACKGROUND: Bipont Editions (also known as the Bipontine Editions and also known as the Biponti Editions) is the name of a famous series of editions, in 50 volumes, of Greek and Latin classical authors, so called from Bipontium, the modern Latin name of Zweibrücken (also referred to as "Deux Ponts"; English, "two bridges") in the Rhineland-Palatinate where they were first issued by the Societas Bipontina (under the supervision of Friedrich Christian Exter and Georg Christian Crollius) in 1779. Their place of publication was afterwards transferred to Strasbourg (referred to on the title pages by the Latin name of "Argentoratum"). Due to the set's fame, both the set (which looks to be impossible to fine complete) and the first edition of each of its component volumes [especially when in their original dust jackets], constitute LITERARY LANDMARKS . As this volume is dated "1779" it is clearly from the first issuance of Biponti editions. The book itself is QUITE SCARCE TO RARE to the Market and, as it wears its ORIGINAL BINDERY DUST JACKET it is EXCEEDINGLY RARE INDEED. Very good + / very good +. Item #3588

Price: $7,650.00