Search Results: the boke named the governour by elyot sir thomas

Dent,, [1907]. 8vo., First Edition thus; original series binding of tan ribbed cloth, upper board blocked in blind, gilt back, dark top, pictorial endpapers, a very good, bright, clean copy. VERY SCARCE. EL 227; Seymour 332.0.

London: C. Kegan Paul & Co, 1880. Hardcover. Very Good. 2 volumes. Sqauer 8vo. Pp. Cxcviii, 352; x, 660. Half crushed morocco over pebbled cloth boards, gilt lettered and decorated spine compartments, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers, bookplate in each volume and embossed owenrship seal to the first blank. Foxing to the first andlast few leaves of each volume, with a few light pencil notes to the end of volume 2. Edges of boards lightly rubbed and spines very lightly faded, but overall a good, clean set in an attractive binding. Edited from the first edition of 1531 by Henry Herbert Stephen Croft. With portraits of Sir Thomas and Lady Elyot.

Sir Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour. London: Thomas Marsh, 1557.
Shakespeare's source for the main plot of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. There are also echoes of The Governour in Henry IV and Troilus & Cressida. (See Ralph M. Sargent, "Sir Thomas Elyot and the Integrity of The Two Gentlemen of Verona," PMLA 65 [1950]: 1166-80.)
Elyot was a lawyer who served as Clerk of the Council under Cardinal Wolsey. He was sent on an unsuccessful diplomatic mission to enlist the support of the Holy Roman Emperor for Henry VIII's divorce from Katherine of Aragon. The Governour is an extended essay on political ethics, arguably the earliest treatise on moral philosophy in English.
Bound with two 13th-century illuminated vellum manuscript leaves, one containing a portion of the Passion of Saint Cecelia and the other of the Life of Saint Aignan of Orleans, and a 15th-century manuscript leaf of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. (See below for a detailed paleographical analysis of these manuscripts.)… Read More