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The first appearance of the collected poems of Josiah Relph, including his poems in the Cumberland dialect. The collection was posthumously published and was edited by Thomas Sanderson, who supplied the biography of Relph in the preface (pp. viii-xvi). A lengthy glossary is also included as well as a contents leaf at the end. With a long list of over 30 pages of subscribers, including a final page listing ‘Names of Subscribers come to hand since printing the above List’.
‘Relph’s poetical works were published posthumously in 1747 and 1798. A wider, national circulation of a few of his poems was achieved by their inclusion in Thomas West’s A Guide to the Lakes, 1784, which was read by Wordsworth, Southey, and early nineteenth century poets. Similarly, in the twentieth century, his dialect poetry is included in anthologies of Lakeland verse, such as those of the poet Norman Nicholson (The Lake District: an anthology, 1977). Relph’s best verses are in the dialect of his native county; they are on pastoral subjects, with classical allusions’ (ODNB).

A very attractive pair of critical texts on Shakespeare’s characters, uniformly bound (numbered as volumes one and two) and in very fresh condition, from the library of the Marquess of Headfort.

An attractive copy of Samuel Derrick’s selection of English poetry, arranged according to subject, from ‘Abbey’ to ‘Zimri’, through ‘Folly’, ‘Genius’, ‘Gentlewoman’ (and, later, ‘Woman’), ‘Kensington Garden’, ‘Marriage’ and ‘Pleasure’. Derrick was an actor turned writer from Dublin whose most interesting works include a translation of Cyrano de Bergerac’s A Voyage to the Moon, 1753 and an edition of Dryden’s works published in 1760. After the failure of his acting career he continued to work closely with the theatre, making various verse and prose contributions and publishing a successful commentary, The dramatic censor; being remarks upon the conduct, characters, and catastrophe of our most celebrated plays, London 1752. On first arriving in London, he made the acquaintance of Boswell, who later regretted his earlier friendship with ‘this creature... a little blackguard pimping dog’ (Boswell’s London Journal, ed. Potten, 1950, p. 228). Johnson, when asked who was the finer poet, Derrick or Christopher Smart, famously replied, ‘Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. Hill and Powell, 1934, IV, 192 - 193).
In the preface, Derrick argues that as English boasts the greatest poetry of any modern language, it is an injustice to the nation to neglect it and he believes that the lack of this sort of anthology proves that it has been neglected. He allows that some similar works have been published, for example Byshe’s Art of Poetry, but these have tended to concentrate on translations from the classics: ‘but these are not the perfections of Dryden and Pope: it is Homer and Virgil we compliment in our admiration; the only merits of our great countrymen that occur, are classical knowledge, and talents for smooth versification. It is in their original works, their imitations of nature, and not of men, that we must look for that excellence in our most celebrated writers, which reflects honour upon the nation, and helps to exemplify its literary character’ (p. ix-x).
‘The various topics in these volumes are arranged in alphabetical order; so that they may be easily found, and the authors name is affixed to each. Here the man of knowledge and erudition will find an index to refresh his memory; the preceptor proper themes to exercise and enrich the mind of his pupil; and knowledge, supported by ornament, will be insensibly conveyed to the young gentleman’s heart, who shall reap instruction from the amusement... The editor hopes the work may be also an agreeable present to the ladies, many of whom boast a more refined taste than the generality of the other sex’ (p. x - xi).

A scarce verse rendering of the Song of Solomon by the schoolmaster and Seventh-day Baptist preacher, Joseph Stennett, who is now chiefly remembered as a hymn-writer. The work is dominated by its extensive preface, with learned footnotes by the author including biblical references in English and Hebrew. This is followed by the dedicatory poem, ‘To Mr. Joseph Stennett, on his Excellent Version of hte Book of Canticles’ (pp. xxiii-xxiv) which is signed by Joseph Collet.

A scarce versification of one of Cicero’s most famous essays, printed by Samuel Richardson. The author, fellow of Oriel College and a canon of Wells Cathedral, explains in his preface that he was inspired by Denham’s earlier translation of the same text: ‘About three years ago, lighting on Sir John Denham’s translation of that celebrated piece (Tully’s book De Senectute) and, not without some wonder and pity, seeing that great genius fall so much below the spirit of the Roman orator, in his English metre; I was so vain, as to think a kind of paraphrase of the same essay, would succeed easier and better: and therefore, at my leisure hours, when severer studies became tedious, I undertook to build a poem (if it is worthy to be call’d so) on Tully’s most exquisite model; taking special care to follow his exalted sentiments, as closely as I could, and not presuming to add much of my own, unless where I am fond of spinning out a Ciceronian thought to the utmost’.

A scarce Dublin reprint of a scarce novel designated as, and printed in, two ‘volumes’ and four parts, but with continuous pagination and register and bound in one volume. The first volume concludes on p. 107, ‘The End of the Second Book’, there is a separate title-page to ‘Vol. II’ and then the story continues with ‘Book the Third’ on p. 111. The novel concludes on p. 221 with ‘The End of the Fourth and Last Book’ and there is a final page of bookseller’s advertisements on p. 222. First published by Dodsley earlier in the same year (ESTC t70728, at BL, CUL, Bodleian, Duke, Huntington, Indiana, Chicago, Penn and Yale), this is often listed as anonymous but has been attributed to John Collet, an attribution followed by James Raven and based on that of the British Library copy.
Charlotte Byersley is nineteen when the novel opens and has just lost her mother. She has been brought up quietly by her parents and although she has had a reasonable education, she knows little of the ways of hte world. Her father, anxious to supply her with a woman’s care, naturally chooses very badly and finds her a companion in the giddy and superficial Miss Arabella Seward, whose ‘outward behaviour was polish’d, specious and insincere’ and who had ‘no other aim but to secure a rich husband’. Shortly after Arabella’s arrival, Charlotte meets the son of her father’s friend, young Welford, recently down from Cambridge but the course of true love does not, of course, run smoothly. All is resolved in time, however, after a series of adventures involving them and many other characters. One unusual incident is that the heroine develops smallpox, is extremely ill with the disease but recovers fully except for the loss of her complexion. This she mourns greatly on her recovery as she assumes that with her lost looks, she has also lost all hopes of being loved by Welford. Abandoned in her illness by the worldly Arabella, Charlotte finds a new confidante and nurse in Mrs Bootle, who persuades her to believe that Welford ‘had too much good sense to place his affection meerly on a set of features, or fine complexion’ (p. 111).
‘To say the best of this performance, it contains nothing indecent or offensive to the chaste and modest ear; but, at the same time, it must be confessed, the reader of taste will here find nothing to excite and keep up his curiosity, engage his attention, or interest his heart. The author has involved about half a dozen couple of insipids, in certain uninteresting adventures and difficulities, out of which they are extricated at last; -- and all is conducted in the modern way, without energy, humour, or spirit’ (The Monthly Review, XII, April 1755, p. 388).

A scarce provincially printed novel charting the life and adventures of a feckless but charming rogue. Printed in Liverpool, in an unusual format for a novel, it tantalisingly combines an arch style with the possibility that its claims to being a factual account - that old turkey - might in this case actually be true. Whatever the answer to that tricky question, the romps and romantic escapades of the hero make for a very good read as we follow him through Manchester, Dublin and Liverpool to London.
With a humorous dedication ‘To his most Potent, Puissant, High and Mighty Serene Highness, The Lord Oblivion’ which begins, ‘Voracious Sir, Without leave, I presume to dedicate the following labors of my pen to you, not like a number of my contemporary brethren, whose works involuntarily fall to your share; no, revered sir, I step out of the common tract of writers, who pretend to consign their works to immortal fame, which, only mistaking, are in reallity [sic] meant for you; but as a benefit, if conferred with an ill grace, loses much of its intrinsic value, so these, my lucubrations, [as no doubt all revolving time will give them into your possession] will come with a much better appearance, presented to you, thus freely, from myself’.

A scarce translation of a philosophical novel by Wieland, Geheime Geschichte des Philosophen Peregrinus Proteus, first published in Leipzig in 1790-91. Wieland adapts the classical Greek setting by placing it within a quasi dream sequence - the narrator has the ability to listen to the souls the dead - where he is able to examine the life and spiritual development of the hero, the Cynic philosophier, Peregrine Proteus as he looks back on his life after his famous public suicide. The narrator recounts a conversation between Peregrinus and Lucian which takes place in Elysium. The novel owes much to Wieland’s earlier Geschichte des Agathon, 1767, which is celebrated as the first Bildungsroman or coming of age novel.
‘The original author treads with unequal, and sometimes unsteady, steps, in the track of the abbé Barthelemi, and attempts to describe Grecian manners and Grecian systems. The ancient veil, however, imperfectly covers modern ideas; and, though a part is antique, modern decorations often expose the fallacy. The confessions, as the title imports, are in Elysium. Peregrine Proteus (not the son of Neptune) meets Lucian in Elysium, and recounts a series of adventures, scarcely probably, with descriptions neither antique, appropriate, nor always decent. In short, the English reader would have lost little had the Confessions retained their original Teutonic garb. The Agathon of Wieland is again introduced: he should have been condemned to everlasting oblivion’ (Critical Review, November 1804, pp. 359-360).
With a dedication to Prince William Frederick of Glocester [sic], signed I.B. Elrington and a note to the subscribers, signed ‘The Translator’, although no subscribers list is known. A four page preface, ‘To the World’, printed in italics, is signed ‘I.B.E.’ and dated London, March 1st 1804. This scarce translation was first published by Bell; this is a remainder issue published by the Minerva Press, with new half-titles and title-pages. An earlier translation of Wieland’s novel, by William Tooke, was published under the title Private History of Peregrinus Proteus the Philosopher, London, Joseph Johnson, 1796.

An attractive set of this elegant poetical compilation by Richard Graves, author of the highly successful picaresque novel, The Spiritual Quixote, 1773. The two volumes were published four years apart, and the second volume is more commonly found with the second edition of the first volume which was brought out with it. The first volume is dedicated to Lady Head, wife of Sir Thomas Head, of Langley in Berkshire, and the second volume is dedicated to Mrs Warburton ‘as a slender tribute of gratitude for many and important favours received from the family at Prior-Park’. The first volume begins with an eight page Apology - ‘some apology is undoubtedly requisite for publishing at this time of day Madrigals in form’ - in which Graves gives an account of his poetical development, charting influences from Voltaire to his friend William Shenstone. He concludes by stating that, if any of his poems had been immoral, he would sooner have consigned them ‘to eternal oblivion’ than have printed them, even though he fears their destination to humble: ‘to be exposed on stalls... or to encrease the trash of circulating libraries’. The preface to the second volume explains that much of the contents were written for a poetical society at ‘B- E-n’, viz. the literary salon hosted by Anna Miller at her house in Batheaston. Although a number of important writers attended the salon, including David Garrick and Anna Seward, its pretentious customs and Miller’s own mediocre poetry caused it to be widely mocked. ‘This society, I am aware’, writes Graves, ‘has been exposed to the undeserved insults of envy and disappointment: and even to the affected sneers of some fastidious critics of a more respectable character’, by which he probably means Dr. Johnson.
The volumes are attractively illustrated, with engraved frontispieces, vignettes and tail-pieces. The frontispiece to volume one depicts a bucolic scene illustrating a quotation from Virgil, engraved by Joseph Collyer (1748-1827); the two further engraved vignettes in the text are also by Collyer. The frontispiece to volume two, featuring another bucolic scene, is by Charles Grignion (1721-1810). This shows a flighty lady playing the tamborine (possibly Euphrosyne herself, the goddess of mirth and one of the three graces) with three ladies dancing in the background. The half-page engraving on the final leaf (also by Grignion, after C.W.B.) depicts an antique urn decorated with laurels: presumably this refers to the vase used at the Batheaston salon, which was a key feature in the lambasting of the society. Purchased by Anna Miller after it was dug up at Frascati in 1759, the vase was decorated with laurels and placed on an altar, where guests were invited to approach, in order to place their poetical compositions in the vase.

A presentation copy of this attractively produced volume of songs printed by Mary Mayler, who ran one of Bath’s most successful bookshops, lending libraries and publishing houses. A note on the verso of the title-page states that the volume was privately printed: ‘These songs are all published with Music, but being the Property of various Persons, the Author has not the power of publishing them collectively. This Volume has therefore been printed for private circulation’.
Produced at the height of Bayly’s fame when his reputation as lyric poet and songwriter made him a popular feature at fashionable soirées in Bath, at one of which he met his future wife, Helena Beecher Hayes. This privately produced volume was evidently intended as a gracious compliment for favours received: this presentation copy is one of a number of presentation copies extant (unfortunately the inscription on the title-page is hard to read: Mrs Davison? Mrs Davinay?).
The volume includes many of his most famous songs, such as ‘I’d be a butterfly born in a bower’ (p. 28), composed on his wedding journey at Lord Ashdown’s villa near Southampton. The notes at the end of this work include a Latin version of that song composed by Francis Wrangham. 1829 also marked the year that Bayly moved to London and embarked on his theatrical career, one at which he enjoyed a fair success and which saw him through financially when the combined blow of loss of income from his Irish estates and the collapse of his coalmining investments hit him in 1831 and it became necessary for him to support his family by writing.

A handsome copy of a highly readable novel, with a nice contemporary female provenance. The story tells of the early life of Frederic Latimer, from his infancy, the death of his father, who was a naval hero and a son of the Earl of Cressy, the remarriage of his mother to the elderly Duke of Annan and her subsequent neglect of him, his school days when he was ‘the best scholar, the best cricketer and the best boxer of Westminster School’ (p. 68), his life at the house of his tutor, Mr. Darewell, and his falling in love with Charlotte, Mr. Darewell’s daughter. In alarm at this inappropriate match, the tutor sends Frederic to Oxford, where the fellows’ social life of stale political jokes, sixpenny whist, ale and smoking does little to cure his heart ache. Innocent and trusting by nature, it is not long before he falls into bad company and in one night of gambling and rather too much wine he ‘exchanged a situation of ease and independence for one of debt and embarrassment’. The debt takes him to London where he has further adventures and begins to wise up a bit. He enlists in the guards, finds more genuine friends, resists a profitable marriage, is posted to the West Indies, succeeds to the peerage on his return and is finally united in marriage to the faithful Charlotte.

This is Le Maistre’s first work, with the following apology by way of preface: ‘The Author of the following trifle has concealed his name, because, unknown in the literary world, its disclosure would have increased his anxiety, without contributing to his success. He has dedicated this little work to no individual; because the Public is the only patron whom he is ambitious of pleasing; and he adds this Preface, merely to solicit for “Frederic Latimer” that indulgence which is usually shewn to a first attempt’. The author’s hope seems to have been gratified, for the novel was well received by the reviewers. The Critical Review commended it as a good first work in which ‘The follies and absurdities of fashion are well satirised’ whilst Thomas Wallace in the Monthly Review wrote: ‘In these volumes, the reader will find the vices and follies of the woman of fashion, the frauds of the gambler, the arts of the coquette, the levity and generosity of youth, and the dignity of worth and wisdom, described with considerable judgment, in the course of a story of which the plot is interesting, and, except one or two incidents towards the denouement, sufficiently natural’.

Provenance: Mary Hill, Marchioness of Downshire, Baroness Sandys (1774-1836), with her crested monogram in the upper section of each spine, and her ownership inscription on two of the three volumes.

First book edition of a popular humorous work originally published in eighty-two weekly numbers from February 1st 1681 to August 22nd 1682. A bestselling Restoration periodical, it contains a series of jests, riddles and satirical dialogues on politics, government, Whigs, Popery, foreign affairs, the penny post and a multitude of ephemeral topics of the day. Persistently attributed to Thomas Flatman, though there are poems included that are not entirely consistent with his style; there may well have been some collaboration involved.

A delightful copy of Sept-Chênes’ translation of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, from the Starhemberg Library, in fresh condition in a typically Starhemberg binding. The translator, Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, was tutor to the young Louis XVI and the first volume was partly translated by the young king as an exercise in learning English. Sept-Chênes made corrections to the work of his Royal charge and completed the translation, which was first published in three volumes in 1776. Various other translators tackled the remaining volumes of Gibbon’s work and it was finally published by Moutard in its entirety in 18 volumes, 1788-1795.
‘Louis XVI, étudiant l’anglais sous la direction de Leclerc de Sept-Chênes, lecteur de son cabinet, s’est exercé sur le premier volume, publié en 1776, et, arrivé aux 15ème et 16ème chapitres, il abandonna l’ouvrage que revit, continua et fit imprimer M. de Sept-Chênes’ (Brunet).

A wonderfully fresh copy in a well-preserved contemporary binding: from the collection of Richard Jennings, whose books were noted for their spectacular condition. Robert Wild was a Puritan divine and a royalist, whose occasional licentious tone and reputation for ‘irregular wit’ was said to have so worried Wild’s friend Richard Baxter that he paid his friend a special visit with the intention of rebuking him, only to be reassured after listening to Wild’s thoroughly sound, puritan sermon. The title poem of this collection was hugely popular, first published on St. George’s day in the year of Charles II’s Restoration, under the title Iter Boreale, attempting something upon the Successul and Matchless March of the Lord General Lord Monck from Scotland to London, London 1660 as ‘By a rural pen’. Dryden, who in contrast called Wild ‘the Wither of the City’, described the excitement with which the poem was received in London: ‘I have seen them reading it in the midst of ‘Change so vehemently that they lost their bargains by their candles’ ends’.
Other poems included here are ‘The Norfolk and Wisbech Cock-Fight’, ‘Upon some Bottles of Sack and Claret’, a satire on the politics of Nathaniel Lee, ‘The Recantation of a Penitent Proteus; or the Changling’, ‘The Fair Quarrel, by way of Letter, between Mr. Wanley, a Son of the Church; and Dr. Wilde, a Non-conformist’ and a number of ballads and elegies. Not an uncommon book, fairly well-held institutionally, though the new edition of Wing does not locate copies in the British Library, Yale or Harvard (although each of these does have a variant, with pp. 120 of text as opposed to pp. 122 as here). This is a fabulous copy in a modest contemporary binding from the library of Richard Jennings: the copy exhibited in the Hayward’s 1947 exhibition.

One of two very scarce French editions of Joseph Andrews to appear under a false ‘Londres’ imprint in 1743. Hugh Amory, in his New Books by Fielding, describes this as a concealed edition and suggests that it may be the later of the two. 'The presumption of priority goes to the more complex collation (it’s easier to achieve a regular structure from a printed copy than from a manuscript)'. The translation is of course not by the ‘Dame Angloise’ as claimed on the title page, but by that indefatigable Anglophile, the Abbé Desfontaines. It was reprinted in 1750, an edition which is more frequently seen.

A very handsome copy of this scarce edition of Mary Wortley Montagu’s seminal travelogue, first published in 1763. The preface, by Mary Astell (1666-1731), was composed in 1724 for Montagu’s manuscript letters.
‘Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s husband was appointed ambassador to the Porte in 1716, and she accompanied him to Constantinople. During her sojourn in Turkey she recorded her observations and experiences in a journal (destroyed after her death) which provided material for her actual letters to her friends, of which only a few survive, and for the series of 52 letters which she composed a few years after her return to England. These are not actual letters, though headed and dated close to the dates of real letters. The form is partly fiction but provides the substance of her life abroad and her opinions on Turkish life and customs ‘ (Blackmer).

An attractive copy with a nice Scottish provenance of this famous handbook of legal and general advice to those in different stations in life. The first part of the work contains specific legal advice to different ranks of lawyers and parties engaged in law suits. After this is a section on ‘Advice to the Monarch’ which is followed by ‘Advice to the Subject’. Further sections are addressed to ministers of state, the landed gentry, the man of wealth, the poor and indigent, the merchant, tradesman, farmer and more general advice to husbands and wives, parents and children, old and young, masters and servants, rich and poor. This is the only known publication by the Jacobite judge David Erskine, generally known under his judicial designation, Lord Dun. An eminent member of the Scottish bar, he was also a jealous Jacobite and friend to the non-jurant episcopal clergy. As a member of the last Scottish parliament, he was ardently opposed to the union.
ESTC notes another issue (t193481), with p. viii correctly numbered and with the amended imprint ‘for G. Hamilton and J. Balfour’. Scarcer than the present issue, it is listed at Aberdeen, Cambridge, NLS and DLC only. Curiously, this copy has a stub before the title page, suggesting a cancel, but given that it has the earlier states of the two pages, it may be more likely that an initial blank has been cut away.

Provenance: Sir John Inglis of Cramond, 2nd Baronet (1683-1771), Postmaster General for Scotland.

A delightful copy of what is generally considered to be Bage’s most accomplished novel. Uncut throughout and in the original boards, this copy comes from the English reading society in Groningen. Each volume has for its front pastedown the printed lending library slip which reads, ‘No. __ / Sending Bill / of the English reading Society / Groningen the __ 17__’. A contemporary hand has completed as follows: ‘Man as he is Vol. 1 [-IV]. [No.] 23 Turn of Books. [the] 20th Jan [17]96’.
The first of Bage's two great novels, less well known than Hermsprong; or, Man as he is not, 1796 but thought by many (such as Tompkins, who calls it simply ‘Bage’s best book’) to be the better of the two. Bage, 'the most distinguished novelist ever connected with the Minerva Press', was a paper manufacturer from the midlands who wrote six novels, three of which were printed at the Minerva Press. Influenced by the ideas of the French revolution, his novels are satirical and revolutionary in tone and are reminiscent of the writings of William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft. Apart from his incisive satire of the social follies of the time, Bage must also be noted for the brilliant lightness of his perceptions of character, for 'that half-acid, half-tolerant revelation of the permanent foibles of human nature in which Bage anticipated Jane Austen' (Blakey p. 64).
According to the publisher's advertisement in The Star, June 26, 1792, Man as He Is 'has been pronounced the first-rate novel in the English language'. However, although three of Bage's earlier novels were included by Scott in Balantyne's Novelists' Library, he included neither Man as He Is nor Hermpsrong, objecting mainly to 'the mad philosophy'. Bage's political opinions were too extreme for Scott who objected to his tendency to locate virtue and generosity too exclusively in the lower classes. Bage also applied equal standards to men and women and his heroines enjoy a measure of sexual as well as intellectual freedom. All of which made the novels too subversive for Scott, whose censorial selection procedures may have done their bit to keep Bage out of the main-stream.
'In their keen perception of the absurdities of society, and their shrewd strokes of character, Bage's novels are far superior to the common run of Minerva publications. The whole tone of his work, also, is particularly refreshing after the inflated sentiment or perfervid horrors of young ladies and their 'first literary attempts', for Bage had a vigorous and original mind, packed only with first-hand knowledge of men and affairs. Yet it is not only by contrast that he holds a distinguished place. His sound judgement of character, and the pleasing irony of his style, give him at least a place in the company of Fielding, Austen and Thackeray' (Blakey, p. 65).
'What Bage brought to the novel was a great increase of intellectual content. His active, liberal and independant mind had ranged through a variety of subjects, and his books are full of thought... Bage's tolerance, his readiness to live and let live, is marked in all his books. It is the necessary and far from exhorbitant price paid by a man in order that he may enjoy to the full the company of his fellow-beings' (Tompkins, p. 203).

An entertaining romantic history based around the life and diplomatic career of Jan Willem, Duke de Ripperda, with many amusing anecdotes drawn from the Moroccan and Spanish courts and a wealth of information and comment on both countries and the character of the two nations. Interesting comparisons are also drawn between the Spanish and English courts, in the final section. The detailed index at the end makes it a good tool for reference as well as a diverting read.

A handsome copy of the scarce first Irish edition of one of the most important utopian novels of the French eighteenth century. Set in Paris in the twenty-fifth century (in the French original the year is 2440), the novel is a direct critique of the establishment through the familiar device of an imaginary society. First published in 1770, it ran to enormous numbers of editions in France and was amongst the best-sellers of underground literature. Trusson called Mercier 'the father of the modern utopia', because his was the first utopia set in future time.
‘Mercier calls for “that blissful period, when man shall have regained his courage, his liberty, his independence, and his virtue!” He adopts the now-familiar technique of having his hero fall asleep and awaken many years in a different society. The twenty-fifth century is very different from the tyrannical, class-ridden eighteenth: revolution has occurred - in this case through the efforts of a benevolent prince; a new, rational civilisation has been developed. Although society is basically agricultural, great stress is placed upon scientific knowledge and teh development of more advanced technology. Scientific invention and discovery are regarded as taking advantage of the supreme power’s gift to mankind. Two aspects of this otherwise enlightened society have long troubled liberal thinkers: the first of these is that all knowledge has been condensed into a very small number of books and all books not on the approved list have been consigned to the flames; the second is that little imagination is required to see the censorship that removes from history ‘those reigns where there was nothing to be seen but wars and cruelties’ becoming the kind of alteration of history one finds in such dystopian works as Nineteen Eighy-Four. Nonetheless, one can see the ideas of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, and Voltaire in this happy society of the future, and the limitations placed on human activity are not greater than those in many utopias, both earlier and later’ (Lewis pp. 121-122).
The English translation, first published by Robinson in 1772, is by William Hooper, a minor literary figure who translated several works into English and was the author of Rational Recreations, 1774. Despite having altered the title, his translation of L'An 2440 is a fairly faithful one. He states that, as there was no particular reason that any given year should be chosen, it seemed better to him that a round number should be used, adding, 'that this is the only alteration made by the translator' (I, iii). He adds that his own notes are printed in italics to distinguish them from Mercier's original footnotes. In these notes, he clarifies some of the French terms, gives some historical background for the allusions, and adds his own opinions on Mercier's utopian ideals. ‘His honesty as a translator’, says Willkie, ‘is admirable' (Wilkie, p. 358).
'The earliest of Mercier's works which is still read for enjoyment and stimulation is L'An 2440 (1770), a work of political radicalism which - springing from a novel conjunction of past experience, present observation, and prophetic extrapolation - is the only genuinely creative contribution to Utopian literature in the eighteenth century' (John Renwick in The New Oxford Companion to French Literature, 1995).