Annála Rioghachta Éireann. The Annals of the Kingdom of Irel...

Hammer

€1,000

Annála Rioghachta Éireann. The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the Four Masters from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616. Edited by John O'Donovan. Second edition. Dublin: Hodges, Smith & Co. 1856. 7 volumes 4to. Later red/black calf with gilt titles. Although a number of manuscript copies were circulated, this monumental work remained unprinted for more than two centuries after its compilation by Fr. Michael O’Clery and his  associates (1632-36). Eventually in 1846, Owen Connellan issued his translation into English of those Annals which cover the period after the Norman invasion. Connellan’s work was so severely criticised, that the Dublin bookseller George Smith, employed the renowned Irish scholar John O’Donovan to make a fuller and more accurate translation, with copious annotation. This he did with considerable assistance from Eugene O’Curry, the work first appearing in three volumes 1848-51. Its success was immediate, so O’Donovan was encouraged both to turn his attention to the period before the invasion, and to produce the Indexes to Places and People, which are so helpful to the researcher. As a result, copies of his [first] edition are sometimes found bound in five cumbersome volumes with the later period preceding the earlier years, and with seven title pages included in the final volume, to allow subscribers the option of rebinding their sets in correct chronological sequence. In this “second” edition, the text remained unaltered, but for the first time sets were offered for sale in seven more manageable volumes, and in their correct order.