Chronicles of Eri. Being the History of the Gaal Sciot Iber: or, The Irish People; Translated from the Original Manuscripts in the Phoenician Dialect of the Scythian Language. Printed for Sir Richard Phillips and Co., 1822., London. First edition. Pp (1) ccclxii, 91; (2) 509. Illustrated, complete with two frontispieces, one of which is hand-coloured and folded, five folding maps, one of which is of Eri, and one folding plate. Beautifully bound in half calf, marbled boards, spines elaborately tooled in gilt with titled letter pieces.

A fine handsome set.

A collection of purported ancient manuscripts which detailed the history of the Irish people from the creation of the world, translated by O’Connor & widely considered to be a literary fraud. The first volume is presented as a translation of text written by “Eolus”, who was “chief of the Gael-ag” from 1368-35 BC which is said to be fifty years after Moses. This describes the origin and migrations of the Gaels. According to this text, the Gaels originated among the Phoenicians, and migrated to Sythia and Sidon, where the people who would become the Ancient Britons split off from the group that would become the Gaels. They eventually migrated to Spain. The second volume describes the Gaels’ conquest of Ireland. When the Egyptian king Sesostris invaded Spain, he sought to establish “idolatry”, which the Gaels resisted. In 1006 BC, they sailed from Spain to Ireland and conquered the land. They brought with them other anti-Sosostris peoples from Spain. In Ireland they established a religion based on fire worship, in which the chief deities were Baal, identified with the sun, and Re, identified with the moon.