1802 DIVINA COMMEDIA of Dante Alighieri 1st ENGLISH EDITION antique 3 VOLUMES

The Divina Commedia of Dante Alighieri:

Consisting of the Inferno-Purgatorio-and Paradiso,
translated into English verse with preliminary essays, notes and illustrations by the Rev. Henry Boyd, A.M., Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Charleville.


Printed and published by A. Strahan, New-Street Square; for T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, in the Strand (London), 1802.

First edition in English

In Three Volumes (complete) , with engraved frontispiece of Dante (some foxing)



Size 6 by 9 1/4"

 3/4 leather, marbled boards

Spines with 5 bands,  title in gilt

Very good interior condition, minor wear of bindings.

With bookplates to the front pastedowns

Text in English 

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Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia or La Commedia), “is usually held to be one of the world’s great works of literature.” Completed in 1320, the work is “(d)ivided into three major sections—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso,” and “traces the journey of Dante from darkness and error to the revelation of the divine light, culminating in the Beatific Vision of God.”

Henry Boyd’s complete translation was issued in 1802, almost five centuries after the 14th-century Italian original.
Boyd provided the very first full translation of La Commedia into English, translating Dante’s work into rhymed 6-line stanzas. Prior to 1802, there was little attention in the English-speaking Protestant world to Alighieri’s work given its deeply Catholic nature.
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