A Joseph Bosworth book.

Joseph Bosworth's edition
of the Old English Orosius
(1859)

When I set out to write stories about some of the books that cross my desk, I didn't realize that some of these books would pretty much tell their own stories.

I always have a soft spot for older editions of Anglo-Saxon texts, so I was pleased recently to find this mid-nineteenth-century edition of King Alfred's Old English translation of Orosius. Although modern scholarship has begun to doubt just how much of Alfred's own work may appear in the surviving translation, the book remains a key exemplification of Alfred's educational program, in which rather than merely lamenting the decline in Latin learning, he set out to bring Latin learning to a broader audience by translating key books into English. 

This copy of Bosworth's edition, though, has another story to tell.

Two inscriptions

At the top of the front flyleaf, Bosworth has inscribed the book to its recipient: "The Reverend R. Martindale, with Jos. Bosworth's very kind regards." Below that, Martindale has recounted the occasion of the gift: "This Book was presented to me by the very learned author, the Rev~ Dr. Bosworth, D. D., F. R. S. +c. +c. and one of the Professors at the University at Oxford as he stood by the side of his own carriage which he had lent to me to convey me to Buckingham at my departure for Scotland. At his extreme age we are not likely to meet again. It was his final gift and presented March 9, 1863." Then follows the Latin quotation, "Eheu! quam multo minus cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse." (Roughly, "How much less it is to study relics, than to remember you.")

In reading booksellers' descriptions, one often reads of an author's "warm" inscription in a book that has been given to someone. Here, it is the recipient's warm memories of the author that give this book its charm.