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The Histories (Limited Edition)
● Only 0 Left in Stock
Perfect Additions
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Presented in a cloth-covered slipcase blocked with a design by the artist
Slipcase lining printed with a design by the artist
Woodstock endpapers printed in gold with a design by the artist
Gilded page tops
Ribbon marker
Limitation tip blocked in gold foil signed by Robin Waterfield, Nick Hayes and Peter Frankopan
Two two-colour maps
Expertly bound in sumptuous leather by Smith Settle in Yorkshire, Robin Waterfield’s outstanding translation is complemented with evocative illustrations by Nick Hayes, a specially commissioned introduction by historian Peter Frankopan, and editorial material by Carolyn Dewald. Two-colour printing, gilded page tops, and a gold-blocked limitation tip signed by the translator, illustrator and introducer complete this exceptional limited edition of just 750 hand-numbered copies.
The Histories takes its title from the Greek word Herodotus used to describe his own work, historiai – literally ‘investigations’ or ‘enquiry’. His epic account of the Persian Wars is packed with iconic moments: the emperor Xerxes having the sea whipped for insubordination; his army drinking rivers dry as it advances towards Greece; three hundred Spartans fighting to the death at the pass of Thermopylae.
But its greatest attraction lies in the author’s fascination with the exotic and his irrepressible urge to digress. The Histories is a treasure-house of tall tales, arcane information and amusing details, as Herodotus describes how the King of Lydia forced a courtier to spy on his naked queen, offers his explanation of why Egyptians don't go bald, speculates about the existence of werewolves or a race of goat-footed men, and tirelessly pursues the origins of things – the earliest language, the first writing, the sources of rivers.
In his attempt to document every aspect of the known world, and even to look beyond it, he produced an unrivalled alloy of history, ethnography, biology, travel-writing, myth and literature, and one of the greatest, and most unusual, works of prose to survive from ancient times.
About the Illustrator
“I appreciated the darkness of the period — half pagan and half animist — and representing a world with a genuine belief in gods.” – Nick Hayes
Each of the nine ‘books’ that make up The Histories opens with a magnificent double–page image produced by printmaker, graphic novelist, environmentalist and ‘professional trespasser’ Nick Hayes.
Created using modern digital technology, these atmospheric illustrations simultaneously evoke the muscular figures and geometric designs of ancient Greek decorative pottery, recall the British linocut tradition embodied by Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, and reflect Hayes’s own love of landscape and the natural world. His integrated illustrative scheme also includes gold-patterned motifs for the endpapers and slipcase lining, powerful black and gold images on the binding and slipcase, and an arresting frontispiece portrait of Herodotus based on an 18th–century sculpture.
:fill(white)/https://www.foliosociety.com/static/cms/media/HRT_HERODOTUS_HISTORIES_ILLUSTRATION_03.jpg)
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About the Illustrator
“I appreciated the darkness of the period — half pagan and half animist — and representing a world with a genuine belief in gods.” – Nick Hayes
Each of the nine ‘books’ that make up The Histories opens with a magnificent double–page image produced by printmaker, graphic novelist, environmentalist and ‘professional trespasser’ Nick Hayes.
Created using modern digital technology, these atmospheric illustrations simultaneously evoke the muscular figures and geometric designs of ancient Greek decorative pottery, recall the British linocut tradition embodied by Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, and reflect Hayes’s own love of landscape and the natural world. His integrated illustrative scheme also includes gold-patterned motifs for the endpapers and slipcase lining, powerful black and gold images on the binding and slipcase, and an arresting frontispiece portrait of Herodotus based on an 18th–century sculpture.
:fill(white)/https://www.foliosociety.com/static/cms/media/HRT_HERODOTUS_HISTORIES_ILLUSTRATION_04.jpg)
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About the Illustrator
“I appreciated the darkness of the period — half pagan and half animist — and representing a world with a genuine belief in gods.” – Nick Hayes
Each of the nine ‘books’ that make up The Histories opens with a magnificent double–page image produced by printmaker, graphic novelist, environmentalist and ‘professional trespasser’ Nick Hayes.
Created using modern digital technology, these atmospheric illustrations simultaneously evoke the muscular figures and geometric designs of ancient Greek decorative pottery, recall the British linocut tradition embodied by Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, and reflect Hayes’s own love of landscape and the natural world. His integrated illustrative scheme also includes gold-patterned motifs for the endpapers and slipcase lining, powerful black and gold images on the binding and slipcase, and an arresting frontispiece portrait of Herodotus based on an 18th–century sculpture.
:fill(white)/https://www.foliosociety.com/static/cms/media/HRT_HERODOTUS_HISTORIES_ILLUSTRATION_01.jpg)
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About the Illustrator
“I appreciated the darkness of the period — half pagan and half animist — and representing a world with a genuine belief in gods.” – Nick Hayes
Each of the nine ‘books’ that make up The Histories opens with a magnificent double–page image produced by printmaker, graphic novelist, environmentalist and ‘professional trespasser’ Nick Hayes.
Created using modern digital technology, these atmospheric illustrations simultaneously evoke the muscular figures and geometric designs of ancient Greek decorative pottery, recall the British linocut tradition embodied by Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, and reflect Hayes’s own love of landscape and the natural world. His integrated illustrative scheme also includes gold-patterned motifs for the endpapers and slipcase lining, powerful black and gold images on the binding and slipcase, and an arresting frontispiece portrait of Herodotus based on an 18th–century sculpture.
:fill(white)/https://www.foliosociety.com/static/cms/media/HRT_HERODOTUS_HISTORIES_ILLUSTRATION_05.jpg)
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About the Illustrator
“I appreciated the darkness of the period — half pagan and half animist — and representing a world with a genuine belief in gods.” – Nick Hayes
Each of the nine ‘books’ that make up The Histories opens with a magnificent double–page image produced by printmaker, graphic novelist, environmentalist and ‘professional trespasser’ Nick Hayes.
Created using modern digital technology, these atmospheric illustrations simultaneously evoke the muscular figures and geometric designs of ancient Greek decorative pottery, recall the British linocut tradition embodied by Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, and reflect Hayes’s own love of landscape and the natural world. His integrated illustrative scheme also includes gold-patterned motifs for the endpapers and slipcase lining, powerful black and gold images on the binding and slipcase, and an arresting frontispiece portrait of Herodotus based on an 18th–century sculpture.
:fill(white)/https://www.foliosociety.com/static/cms/media/HRT_HERODOTUS_HISTORIES_ILLUSTRATION_02.jpg)
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Few facts are known about the life of Herodotus. He was born around 490 BC in Halicarnassus, on the south-west coast of Asia Minor. He seems to have travelled widely throughout the Mediterranean world, including Egypt, Africa, the area around the Black Sea and throughout many Greek city-states, of both the mainland and the islands. A sojourn in Athens is part of the traditional biography, and there he is said to have given public readings of his work and been friends with the playwright Sophocles. He is said also to have taken part in the founding of the colony of Thurii in Italy in 443 BC. He probably died at some time between 425 and 420 BC. His reputation has varied greatly, but for the ancients and many moderns he well deserves the title (first given to him by Cicero) of ‘the Father of History’.
Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University and UNESCO Professor of Silk Roads Studies at King's College, Cambridge. His books include The First Crusade: The Call from the East (2012); The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (2015; Folio 2023), The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World (2018) and The Earth Transformed: An Untold History (2023). He is President of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Geographic Society, the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute. He works on global geopolitics, on trade and exchange networks in the past and present, on climate and the environment and on the militarisation of space.