[SALTONSTALL, Wye (c.1602-c.1640), translator]. Ovid's Heroical Epistles. Englished by W. S. ... This may be Reprinted, R. L. S. London: "Printed for the Company of Stationers," 1695, 8vo, woodcut illustrations, calf (worn). The sixth edition. Wing O672.

[SALTONSTALL, Wye (c.1602-c.1640), translator].  Ovid's Heroical Epistles. Englished by W. S. ... This may be Reprinted, R. L. S. London: "Printed for the Company of Stationers," 1695. Small 8vo (142 x 90mm). Engraved allegorical frontispiece stating "The 6th. Edytion", 24 woodcut illustrations (frontispiece and title page lightly spotted and stained, with the frontispiece offset onto the title, minor taped repair to F2 not affecting legibility, a few short tears, some mainly light spotting and staining). 18th-century calf, the spine lettered in gilt (joints split, upper cover almost detached with one cord holding, rubbed and scuffed). Provenance: some later pencil annotation to the front pastedown. The translator's oleaginous and patronising epistle is dedicated "To the Virtuous Ladies and Gentlewomen of England" - for whose benefit, he makes it clear, the translation from Latin into English has been carried out ("Ladies and Gentlewomen, since this Book of Ovid's which most gentlemen could read before in Latin, is for your sakes come forth in English, it doth at first address it self a Suitor, to wooe your acceptance, that it may kiss your hands, and afterward have the lines thereof in reading sweetned [sic] by the odour of your breath ... [etc]") - and is followed by a poem of the same title. In some earlier editions - the Pirie copy of 1639, for example - the illustrations are pasted over spaces left by the printer, whereas in the present edition the illustrations are printed directly onto the page. DNB records a "second edition" of 1636 in the Bodleian, and subsequent editions of 1639, 1663, 1671 and the present edition of 1695, but does not mention a first. The BL lists only editions of 1653 (4th), 1663 (5th) and 1671 (no edition stated) but no others, including the present, except for an expanded related work with the full title "Ovid's Heroicall [sic] Epistles. Englished by W. S. Three Responsive Epistles of A. Sabinus. Second edytion", which is dated 1639. "The sixth edition", as stated on the frontispiece. The Pirie Library (the sale held at Sotheby's New York, 2-4 December 2015) lot 618 (citing the 1639 edition, being the lead item in a lot comprising eight books in total, each a translation of Ovid); Wing (2nd ed.) O672 (listed under Ovid). RARE.