Auli Gellii Noctes Atticae ex editione Jacobi Gronovii. Cum notis et interpretatione in usum Delphini variis lectionibus notis variorum recent edition et modicum.

London : A. J. Valpy, 1824. Four volumes in three, octavo (215 x 140 mm), in a handsome contemporary University of Glasgow prize binding by Carrs – the most prestigious Glasgow bookbinder of the period – of full vellum with gilt ornament and arms; the set was awarded as a First Class prize in Latin to James Campbell in Session 1840-41, with the prize certificate on the pastedown of the first volume; marbled edges and endpapers; lower board of the first volume a little mottled, internally clean and crisp throughout, a beautiful set.

The Attic Nights is a compendium of philosophy, literary criticism and personal anecdotes authored by Aulus Gellius (born circa 125 CE), a second-century Roman man of letters. We have no biographical information about Gellius apart from what can be gleaned from the Attic Nights itself. We do know that he was possibly born in North Africa, and that he served as a praetor. He writes in his preface that he had originally commenced the Attic Nights as a way to pass the time on cold winter’s nights, but had finished it some thirty years later, chiefly for the education of his children. The work is valuable for its many references to works by other authors which have not survived. Gellius was admired by early Christian scholars including Saint Augustine, as well by the geographer Macrobius.

This 1824 London edition was edited by the Dutch classical scholar Jacob Gronovius, father of botanist Jan Frederik Gronovius – a correspondent and patron of Linnaeus and author of a treatise on the native plants of Virginia.