It sold for £1600 at South Cerney auction house Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) on October 6.
On the front blank appears an inscription recording the volume as a gift to his sister, Mary, from the Rev Thomas Twining (1735-1804), a classical scholar and son of the tea merchant, Daniel Twining.
Thomas had originally been destined to enter his father’s business but when he showed little interest in – even a distaste for – the idea, he was instead enrolled as student at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
He later took holy orders and married Elizabeth, the daughter of Palmer Smythies, the rector of St Michael’s, Colchester, who had taught him at the Essex town’s Free Grammar School. Thomas spent the rest of his life in the church and the region, but earned a wider reputation as a classical scholar through his 1799, annotated translation of Aristototle’s Poetics.
