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Quo Vadis?
Verona: Printed for members of the Limited Editions Club at the Officina Bodoni, 1959. Item #03666
With Thirty-Five Tipped-in Monochrome Plates by Salvatore Fiume
SIENKIEWICZ, Henryk. Quo Vadis? Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin with an introduction by Harold Lamb and illustrations by Salvatore Fiume. Verona: Printed for members of the Limited Editions Club at the Officina Bodoni, 1959.
Limited to 1,500 copies signed by Salvatore Fiume and Giovanni Mardersteig, this being no. 1483.
Large octavo (10 1/2 x 6 3/4 inches; 267 x 172 mm.). 540 pp. Illustrated with thirty-five tipped in monochrome plates.
Publisher's natural gray blue patterned linen over boards, spine with red cloth label lettered in gilt, original gray dust jacket with spine lettered in blue. Housed in the publisher's red cardboard slipcase, spine lettered in gilt. Spine of dust jacket spine very slightly darkened otherwise a very fine copy.
Quo Vadis (A Narrative of the Time of Nero) is a historical novel written by Henryk Sienkiewicz in Polish. "Quo vadis Domine" is Latin for "Where are you going, Lord?" and alludes to the apocryphal Acts of Peter, in which Peter flees Rome but on his way meets Jesus and asks him why he is going to Rome. Jesus says, "I am going back to be crucified again", which makes Peter go back to Rome and accept martyrdom. The novel tells of a love that develops between a young Christian woman, Ligia (or Lygia), and Marcus Vinicius, a Roman patrician. It takes place in the city of Rome under the rule of emperor Nero, circa AD 64.
Limited Editions Club Bibliography, 302.
Price: $150.00