The ''Athenian Letters'' was a collaborative work of

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

history and geography, published by a circle of authors around Charles Yorke and Philip Yorke, and taking the form of commentary in letter form on Thucidydes. It had a “considerable vogue”. While still college students, the brothers Yorke planned the work, which was begun in and appeared in two volumes (1741 and 1743), initially in a very small private edition. Others involved, anonymously, were

Thomas Birch Thomas Birch (23 November 17059 January 1766) was an English historian. Life He was the son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, and was born at Clerkenwell. He preferred study to business but, as his parents were Quakers, he did not go to ...

, Henry Coventry, John Green, Samuel Salter, Catherine Talbot, Daniel Wray, George Henry Rooke, John Heaton, John Lawry, and William Heberden. The authorship was for a long time a well-guarded secret. A one-volume edition in 1781 ran to 100 copies, the first edition having been only of 10, and later editions and a French translation followed. Philip C. Yorke, The Life and Correspondence of Philip Yorke Earl of Hardwicke, pp. 207.8.

Notes and references

{{authoritycontrol 1741 books 18th-century history books History books about ancient Greece