Longus

1972 · 2204168 — Imprint Society 1972. Limited Edition. Hard Cover. Good/No Jacket. Hoffmann Felix. Limited edition #813 of 1950 copies. Hand-numbered in black ink and signed by illustrator in pencil on limitation page. Lacks slipcase. Boards slightly bowed light stain to marginal corner of frontispiece does not affect image. 1972 Hard Cover. 152 pp. 8vo. Turquoise leather spine over paper-covered boards gilt titles. Designed and produced in Switzerland by Max Caflisch printed on Zerkall laid paper. Includes seventeen aquatints created by Felix Hoffmann specially for this edition. Translated from the original Greek by Christopher Collins. The only known work of the 2nd century AD Greek novelist and romancer Longus. A tender novel describing eager and inept young love Daphnis and Chloe tells the story of a baby boy and girl who are discovered separately two years apart alone and exposed on a Greek mountainside. Taken in by a goatherd and a shepherd respectively and raised near the town of Mytilene they grow to maturity unaware of one another's existence until the mischievous god of love Eros creates in them a sudden overpowering desire for one another. A masterpiece among early Greek romances attracting both high praise and moral disapproval this work has proved an enduringly fertile source of inspiration for musicians writers and artists from Henry Fielding to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Maurice Ravel. Longus transforms familiar themes from the romance genre including pirates dreams and the supernatural into a virtuoso love story that is rich in insight humorous and ironical in its treatment of human sexual experience. Imprint Society hardcover books