4to. xxiv, 776 pp., colour frontispiece map, engraved title page vignette, numerous original illustrations, contemporary full calf, slightly rubbed round edges, all edges gilt, title gilt on raised decorated spine, marbled endpapers, index, occasional minor spotting, otherwise copy in very good condition, Cassell Petter & Galpin, London, Paris & New York, no date, [ca. 1880].

Synopsis

SPLENDID ILLUSTRATED WORK. Farrar, Frederic William 1831-1903, dean of Canterbury. While at Marlborough he made his popular reputation by writing the ‘Life of Christ.’ He sought to meet the requirements of the publishers, Messrs. Cassell, Petter & Galpin, who suggested that the sketch should enable readers to realise Christ’s ‘life more clearly, and to enter more thoroughly into the details and sequence of the gospel narratives.’ In 1870 he visited Palestine with Walter Leaf, his pupil at Harrow, and his task was completed after much hard work in 1874. The success was surprising. Twelve editions were exhausted in a year, and thirty editions of all sorts and sizes in the author’s lifetime. It has had a huge sale in America and has been translated into all the European languages. Despite its neglect of the critical problem of the composition of the gospels, and the floridity which was habitual to Farrar’s style, his ‘Life of Christ’ combined honest and robust faith with wide and accurate scholarship. The value of the excursuses has been recognised by scholars. Dictionary of National Biography.