WOOD, ROBERT. 1717?-1771. An Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer: With a Comparative View of the Ancient and Present State of the Troade. London: T. Payne, and P. Elmsly, 1775.
4to (289 x 220 mm). [iii]-xv, [1], 342. Engraved vignette on title and final leaf, engraved portrait frontispiece, 3 plates (one folding), one folding map. 19th century half morocco. Lacking half-title, some offsetting to plates, toning, binding rubbed at joints and extremities.
Provenance: the estate of a New England collector.

FIRST EDITION. Robert Wood spent nearly four years in the Levant, resulting in his celebrated works on Balbec and Palmyra. The "Essay is one of the most interesting of the eighteenth century works on Homer. He was one of the first to advance the theory that writing was unknown to Homer and to establish the concept of oral tradition... the Comparative View is one of the earliest of the attempts to work out Homeric geography..." (Blackmer 1836).