English Translations from the Greek: A Bibliographical Survey

English Translations From The Greek
A Bibliographical Survey
Finley Melville Kendall Foster
Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University
New York
Columbia University Press
1918


This book had its origin in a preliminary study of the attitude of the first thirty years of the nineteenth century toward the classics. A list of the translations which were published during those years seemed so significant, if only from the point of view of quantity, that it was deemed wise to extend that study backward and forward fifty years in order to have the necessary material for a comparative study of the original list. It soon became evident, however, that there were only two possible termini for such a study: the establishment of Caxton's printing press in London in 1476 and the present year. The result of these searchings is embodied in the list of translations which make up the contents of this book.
Certain limitations have, of necessity, been put upon the scope of this work. With a few exceptions, Musaeus for instance, the survey deals with Greek literature to 200 a.d. Josephus, because the interest in his work is mainly religious, has been omitted; and for the same reason the writings of the early Christian fathers have not been listed. Moreover, in stating the reappearances of a given translation, I have made no attempt to distinguish between editions and reprints. To attempt to unravel the tangled skein of second, third, fourth, fifth editions, and the like, would in many cases be the work of a lifetime. I do not feel that the value of this list would be increased by any such attempt. The fact that a particular book was published at a particular time, with the notation of any revision or correction which may have been made, is the matter of prime importance.
Of the sources of this list I have little to say. The list of translations published in England was gathered largely from the following books: Miss Palmer's bibliography of classical books published before 1640, The Stationers' Register, The Term Catalogues, The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books, The London Catalogue, The English Catalogue, Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, Moss's Classical Bibliography, Engelmann's Bibliotheca Scriptorum, and the book lists published in the Gentleman's Magazine, and The Edinburgh Review.