Publishing History > Family Classical Library (A. J. Valpy)

Family Classical Library

Publisher: A. J. Valpy.
Place: London, United Kingdom. Date: 1830-1834.

FAMILY CLASSICAL LIBRARY (A. J. VALPY)

Series Note: The full name of this series, which was published by Abraham John Valpy (1786-1854), was the Family Classical Library: English Translations of Greek and Latin Classics. It comprised 52 volumes.

The series was praised by critics and reviewers, for example:

"Of the series of cheap and popular Works, the Family Library, Constable's Miscellany, Library of Entertaining Knowledge, and Valpy's Family Classical Library, we think the latter by far the most valuable and important. They are all exceedingly cheap, and neatly printed, and, with a few exceptions, well written ; but the superiority of the Classical Library consists in the certainty of its intrinsic worth. We have here some of the highest efforts of the human intellect ; works, which, after time has buried in oblivion the less solid and durable, have survived as the magnificent and beautiful relics of ancient wisdom and genius. We hail with pleasure every attempt to make our countrymen familiar with the Poets, Historians, and Philosophers of Greece and Rome. They hare hitherto been locked up in a language unknown but to a small number of scholars. We say a small number, because, independently of those who have had no opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the classical languages, a great majority of those who have, never acquire that facility in translation which would enable them to read without labor, and a frequent reference to a dictionary, some of th« best productions of antiquity. We have mentioned this publication at more length than is usual in the pages of a newspaper, because we are convinced that if, in consequence of being rendered thus accessible to all classes, the classics should be generally read, the design is worthy of more than common support, being in the highest degree favorable to the cultivation of manly thought and good taste' among our youthful countrymen."
-- Bridgewater and Somersetshire Herald

A number of titles in Valpy's Family Classical Library series were later reprinted by Harper & Brothers in the United States. Valpy also published a number of other series including the Delphin Classics..

Serial Number / Title and Author / Translator / Other Details

I.
Part of Demosthenes, translated by Thomas Leland

II.
The Completion of Demosthenes, translated by Thomas Leland, and the Whole of Sallust, translated by William Rose, with a Portrait of each Author.

III.-IV.
Xenophon's Anabasis and Cyropaedia, translated by Edward Spelman and Hon. Maurice Ashly Cooper; Portrait and Map.

V.-VII.
Herodotus, translated by Rev. William Beloe; Portrait and Map.

VIII.-IX.
Virgil, translated by Francis Wrangham, William Sotheby, and John Dryden; with a Portrait.

X.
A New Translation of Pindar, translated by Rev. C. A. Wheelright [Charles Apthorp Wheelwright]; with a Portrait; also a New Translation of Anacreon, translated by Thomas Browne.

XI.-XV.
Tacitus, translated by Arthur Murphy; with a Portrait.

XVI.
The Characters of Theophrastus; with illustrated by physiognomical sketches : Hints on the Individual Varieties of Human Nature, and and general remarks. Includes 50 characteristic engravings. Plates to Theophrastus.

XVII.-XVIII.
Horace, with Phaedrus, translated by Christopher Smart, and the appendix of Gudius [Marquard Gude] and with a portrait of Horace, in which are introduced Translations of different parts of Horace translated by: John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Richard Porson, Richard Bentley, John Milton, William Cowper, Abraham Cowley, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Chatterton, Joseph Addison, Lord Byron, &c.

XIX.
Juvenal, by translated by Charles Badham, and Persius, translated by William Drummond; with a Portrait.

XX.-XXII.
Thucydides, translated by William Smith; with a Portrait.

XXIII.-XXIX.
Plutarch's Lives, translated by John and William Langhorne; with a Portrait, and other Engravings.

XXX.
Hesiod, translated by Sir Charles Abraham Elton; Bion and Moscus, Sappho, Musaeus, translated by Francis Fawkes; and Lycophron's Cassandra, translated by Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston; with a Portrait of Hesiod.

XXXI.-XXXII.
Caesar's Commentaries, translated by William Duncan; with a Portrait.

XXXIII.
Sophocles, translated by Thomas Francklin; with a Portrait.

XXXIV.-XXXVI.
Euripides, translated by Robert Potter; with a Portrait.

XXXVII.-XXXIX.
Homer, translated by Alexander Pope; with a Portrait.

XL.-XLI.
Ovid, translated by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, William Congreve, Joseph Addison, and Others; with a Portrait.

XLII.-XLIV.
Cicero's Orations, translated by William Duncan; Offices, by Thomas Cockman; and Cato and Laelius, translated by William Melmoth; with a Portrait.

XLV.
Aeschylus, translated by Robert Potter.

XLVI.-LII.
Livy, translated by George Baker.

FEATURED PAGES

Harper & Row
Harper's Perennial Library, 1964-1990
Harper Torchbooks
Harper Torchbooks: History
Harper Torchbooks: Cover Artists