The Art of Love

Ovid, 43 B.C. - 17 or 18 A.D.
The Art of Love. Translated by B. P. Moore. Illustrated by Eric Fraser.
Mount Vernon, New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1971.
Call Number: (SPL) PA 6522 .A8 M6 1971
Gift of Loryn Romadka, from the collection of Austin F. Lutter.
Special Collections, Golda Meir Library

Ovid's first popular work The Art of Love appears here in the translation of B.P. Moore. British scholar W.S. McGuinness wrote of this translation before its publication by The Limited Editions Club:

It is in rhyming couplets identical in number with Ovid's elegiac couplets and each containing the same subject matter as the corresponding couplet of Ovid. It is sad to think that a rending of such distinguished elegance should be out of print and likely, it seems, to remain so.

Moore (1877-1955) attended Oxford where he performed the rare feat of carrying off the complete series of five different university scholarships in classics. While he followed a career in the civil service, his true interest remained classical literature. The Monthly Letter of The Limited Editions Club writes of Moore:

He endeared himself to his colleagues in the government by his ability to turn current topics into amusing Latin verse. Whereas most people reportedly sing in the bath, Moore recited Latin there. With his phenomenal memory, knowing Ovid by heart, he used to walk from home in West London to his Whitehall office every morning doing translations in his head. Arrived at his desk, he would jot down the results; apparently much of The Art of Love was done in this manner.

The illustrations are from the pen of English artist Eric George Fraser, a prominent artist in oils, water colors, and pen and ink. For The Art of Love, Fraser completed ten two-color full-page drawings and twenty black-and-white part-page illustrations. All are executed in pen and ink.