08/07/2026
The Dog Days of Summer - a common enough phrase especially in July and August. It comes from Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer it referred to the approach of Achilles "Terrific glory! ... The Dog Star, that bodes malignant heat to man". Somehow the phrase made it’s way to us today as The "dog days of summer".
Even though his formal education stopped around the age of twelve, he continued to study. He studied Virgil, Horace, Homer, Chaucer and Shakespeare to name a few. He also studied languages and it appears he referenced Anne Dacier’s French translation of Homer as he worked on his version of the epic.
Alexander Pope was 25 when he began his translation of The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer. His was not the first translation into English; that honor belongs to George Chapman.
Pope’s work is significant for a variety of reasons. Prior to Pope’s work, many authors sought patrons or benefactors to subsidize their writing. If an author did not have a patron, they often were at the mercy of cutthroat publishers who paid very little. Pope changed all that – he convinced wealthy people to pay a subscription for a multi-volume translation of The Iliad and The Odyssey. This made Pope the first English author in history to be financially independent.
The pictured book was published by Leavitt & Allen between 1853-1860. Books of that time period often did not list the publication date. This era was a time of change for books. They were once only afforded by the wealthy. Starting in the 1850s, books were made with cloth covered boards instead of leather, making books more affordable for almost everyone. Readers not only wanted books to read, but to be decorative and beautiful on the shelf. The covers were embossed and the rounded spines reflected Victorian tastes of the time.
This book is unusual for the paper oval pictorials on the spine. While they were distinctive, they were also fragile and many did not survive the last 170 years. The text blocks edges are marbled. This was a hand-dipped process. While this is not a first edition it represents an author and a book that changed how authors were paid and a book that allowed the great works of literature and history to read by everyone.
