IL PASTOR FIDO:

First edition, first printing. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents, except for short marginal ink annotations to two pages and the rear pastedown, clean throughout. In the neatly price-clipped, slightly dusty wrapper, lightly rubbed and nicked to extremities. Residual adhesive evidence of a small price sticker to the front flap. A very presentable copy. Uncommon.

"This is the first critical edition of Sir Richard Fanshawe's translation of G. B. Guarini's 'Il Pastor Fido', perhaps the most famous and influential of Renaissance pastoral dramas. Besides providing an authoritative text, the edition includes essays on Guarini and Fanshawe, the latter of whom probably deserves a place with such famous Renaissance translators as Harington and Fairfax. The notes to the play make available for the first time in English copious quotations from Guarini's critical commentary on his work. Extracts from two earlier translations of the play are appended to enable the reader to judge for himself the quality of Fanshawe's version" (from the jacket).