Vitae Excellentium Imperatorum: cum versione Anglica... or, Cornelius Nepos's lives of the excellent commanders. With an English translation as literal as possible, with English Notes, and a Large Index. By John Clarke, Master of the Publick Grammar-School in Hull.

Bookseller Notes

John Clarke (1687-1734) was master of Hull Grammar School from 1720 to 1732 and afterward published ambitious and popular works on educational reform and the teaching of Latin. 'An outspoken critic of the traditional style of teaching classics.... He particularly cited the drudgery of elementary memorization of rules and the absence of adequate English translations as flaws' (ODNB). While schoolmaster he published translations of a number of classical authors, including Ovid, Suetonius, and Sallust; this version of Cornelius Nepos was also very popular, and reached its fifteenth London edition by the end of the eighteenth century. The early printings are all rare, and ESTC lists copies of this first edition in the BL and the New Haven Colony Historical Society only.