The Works of Sir James Ware Concerning Ireland, revised and improved, complete in three volumes (one volume being two volumes in one) by Ware, James; Walter Harris, translator - 1739

Dublin, Ireland: Printed for the author by E. Jones at Clarendon, 1739. Revised and Improved Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Currently no additional copies available on-line of this "revised and improved" edition of Sir James Ware's magnum opus contribution to the social history, architecture and representations of the Catholic Church in Ireland and its bishops, priests, nuns and others. Two big, tall folio format exemplars, measuring 8 1/4" x 12 1/2" wide and tall, respectively, both remarkably sturdy, and complete in two volumes (the first being a single volume, the second being two volumes bound as one, comprising "The History and Antiquities of Ireland," etc., and the second "book" being "History of the Writers of Ireland"). Bound in marbled leather panels laid over extremely thick boards, ditto, backstrip laid over tightly, and joints and hinges holding quite firm. Light wear to boards, light scuffing to edges, soiling to, light foxing of page margins to first range of pages of both volumes, else dissipating and still quite fine and bright. Boards stamped in oval with "Faculty of Procurators Glasgow", denoting the professional society founded there in 1668 and from whose library came these tomes with only that sign of ex-library status. All edges stained in red. Five raised bands and gilt lettering over black labels in two of the four compartments scribed thereby, short title in one, volume number in the other. Gilt ruling to spines, gilt flourishes inside each compartment. Titles appear thus: Vol. I. Containing, the history of the bishops of that Kingdom, and such Matters Ecclesiastical and Civil, in which they were concerned, from the first Propagation of Christianity therein to the present Times. Vol. II. Containing, the antiquities of Ireland. Vol. III. Containing, the writers of Ireland. In two Books. All written in Latin by Sir James Ware, Knight, now newly translated into English, and Revised and Improved with numerous and material Additions. Embellished with copper plates. Bright and clean marbled newer endpapers. Full-page frontis engraving of Jacobus Waraeus Eq. Aurat., quite fine, to Volume I, having been executed originally in 1666, reproduced at frontis of the second volume. Full-on translator's Preface is by Walter Harris (1686-1761), located at Clarendon Street, Dublin, in 1739, an Irish historian who also worked for the Bishop of Meath. Harris provides a fascinating back-story of the original edition and its translation into English, and with a separate Preface to the second volume. Ware's work on the churches and bishops of Ireland followed from a work he'd completed four decades prior, titled Archiepiscoporum Hiberniae (see Ask Ireland dot com). New material and/or different translations found in crotchets ( . . . [ . . . ] . . . ). The engraving artistry begins with a three-panel, two-fold engraving of the Catholic Church in Armagh, Ireland, unusually fine and complicated, printed on heavy card stock. Additional, multi-panel, multi-fold engravings of the churches and cathedrals throughout Ireland, including at Clonmacnoise (19" wide x 13" tall), Derry (22 1/4" wide x 15 3/4"), Dublin (three views) (15" wide x 12 1/4", 15" wide x 12 1/4" tall, 18" wide x 12 1/4" tall), Kildare (17" wide x 12 1/4" tall), Canice, at Kilkenny (two views) (17 1/4" wide x 12" tall, 13 1/2" wide by 9 1/2"tall), Cashell (16" wide x 12" tall), Limerick (14 1/2" wide by 12" tall), Waterford (three views) (16 1/2" wide x 11" tall, 15" wide x 12" tall, 14" wide x 11" tall), Lismore (16" wide x 12" tall), Cloyn (17" wide x 12" tall), Killaloe (15 1/2" wide x 11 1/2" tall). Volume I, extensive prelims, with 660 pp., followed by 17-page Index, including a proposal for printing by subscription. Volume II: List of Plates (numbered in a librarian's skinny pencil-point in margin and with penciled note as to collation thus: "22 pl. with check mark and initialed by [illegible]"): 1) The Head of Sir James Ware, 2) Hibernia Veteris Typus, 3) The Urns, horns of the moose deer, and other curiosities, 4) Irish Metals, 5) A Regular Canon of St. Augustine; 6) An Augustinian Nun, 7) A Nun of St. Bridget, 8) A Regular Canon of St. Victor, 9) A Knight Templar, 10) A Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, 11) A Regular Canon of the Premonstratenses, 12) A Canon Regular of St. Gilbert, 13) A Trinitarian for the Redemption of Captives; 14) A Benedictine Monk; 15) A Nun of St. Benedict; 16) A Cistercian Monk, 17) A Dominican Friar, 18) A Conventual Franciscan Friar, 19) A Franciscan of the Strict Observance, 20) An Observantine Franciscan, 21) An Augustinian Hermit, 22) A Carmelite Friar. Table of Contents, two pages, with Corrections. Laid in is an offprint from the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy from Volume 55, Section C., No. 5, from Kathleen Hughes, "A Manuscript of Sir James Ware British Museum Additional 4788," published in April of 1953. All in, an astounding work of scholarship, translation, engraving, printing and binding. Walter Harris's special contribution has been the elevation of the lives and works of bishops and nuns, and especially St. Patrick. His writing and his translation of the original have a surprisingly contemporary, modern feel to them. Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.