1824 FOUR OF EURIPIDES’ TRAGEDIES Edited By Ricardus Porson. 
 
Antiquarian Half-Bound LEATHER Book. With all edge marble pages and marble  pastedowns and endpapers. 
 
Relating to the four tragedies of Euripides, edited by Richard Porson: the first enumerating the cited authors, the second, comprising Greek words and phrases; thirdly, referring specifically to the essence of the characters. This includes all of the 4 tragedies consisting of: HECUBA, ORESTES, PHOENISSAE, AND MEDEA. Each Tragedy has its own title page in the book which is dated 1821. 
 
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS IN LATIN AND GREEK. 
 
For the faithfulness of the manuscripts, corrected and furnished with notes, this is a more correct edition, to which three indexes are added. 
 
Published by G. And W. B. Whittaker, Ave-Maria-Lane, London, in 1824. Printed by R. Gilbert, St. John’s Square, London. 
 
Ricardus Porson (1759-1808) was a renowned British classical scholar and textual critic. He was a professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge and is considered one of the most influential classical scholars of the 18th/early 19th century.
 
Porson made significant contributions to the study and editing of Greek texts, particularly the plays of Euripides. He is known for developing a set of rules for the text criticism of Greek dramas, which became known as "Porson's Law".
 
Euripides was one of the most celebrated and influential tragedians of ancient Greece. He lived from around 480 BCE to 406 BCE, making him a contemporary of other famous Greek playwrights like Aeschylus and Sophocles.
 
Ricardus Porson originally published his first instalment of Euripides, “Hecuba” in 1797, followed by Orestes in 1798, Phoenissae in 1799 and Medea in 1801.
 
This is half bound in thick leather over the spine, the board inner edges and corners, whilst the remainder of the boards are bound in marble paper. There are intricate tooled, gilt decorations on the panelled spine and gilt lettering over a pasted background.  The cover is intact, and robust, and so in keeping with books of this age. There is wear to the cover, but this is to be expected with a book that is 200 years old. The wear includes partial rips to the leather on the spine, bumping and rips to the corners, patches of rubbing, light scratches, and fading. Please see the photographs provided for further reference. 
 
Inside, the pages are bright for their age, and only very lightly tanned. There is occasional very light foxing on the pages. Besides this, the pages are in an overall neat condition for their age, and predominantly uncreased. There is only the very occasional light crease or fold, or other small mark, which does not affect the text. The pages are without rips and there is just a pinprick sized hole towards the bottom of page 5 for “Hecuba”. This is minor and does not affect the text (please see the photo provided for page 5). A handful of pages have a very small amount of pen written on them. A few of the edges of the pages are uneven and roughly cut, but this is highly likely due to the construction of this book and is all part of its beautiful history. The page leaves were probably uncut and then severed with a pen knife. The main text block is tightly bound and secure and there is just a very light and partial crack in the gutter between the front pastedown and front free endpaper, and a larger crack in the gutter between the back pastedown and back free endpaper (see photos). There are no loose pages. There are no missing pages, and so all 62 pages of the preface and supplement to the preface, 78 pages of “Hecuba”, 96 pages of “Orestes”, 97 pages of “Phoenissae”, 92 pages of “Medea”, and 26 pages of the index, are present. Please study the photos carefully as to the condition of this book, as they do form part of the description. 
 
This really is a lovely example of this rare book. 
 
This measures approximately 22 cm by 14 cm and 2.9 cm wide. It weighs approximately 641 grams.