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  • TOWNSHEND, Thomas, of Gray’s Inn.
    Poems. By Thomas Townshend, Esq. of Gray’s Inn. London, T. Bensley for E. and S. Harding, 1796.

    First Illustrated Edition. 8vo (180 x 105 mm), pp. vii, [i], 112, with engraved plate and numerous engravings in text, in contemporary red morocco, black morocco label lettered in gilt horizontally, spine ruled in gilt, with marbled endpapers and gilt edges.

    A good copy in contemporary red morocco of a charmingly illustrated collection of poems. Originally published in a Dublin edition of 1791, this is the… (more)

    A good copy in contemporary red morocco of a charmingly illustrated collection of poems. Originally published in a Dublin edition of 1791, this is the first edition to include the sequence of beautiful illustrations after Stothard, engraved by D. Harding, William N. Gardiner and Birrel. The text is divided into two sections, the first entitled ‘Elfin Eclogues’, comprising three eclogues, the first two of which feature characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream; the second and longer section is entitled ‘Odes’; this begins with an ‘Ode to Music’ which is accompanied by engraved plate and followed by notes. Further Odes follow on ‘War’, ‘Morning’, ‘Evening’, ‘The Glow-Worm’, ‘Hope’, ‘Love’ and ‘Youth’. A final section includes four ‘Elegaic Odes’, with a couple of touching pictures of youths mourning in graveyards. In addition to the engraved plate accompanying the ‘Ode to Music’, each poem has an engraved head-piece and there are tail-pieces throughout.

    ESTC t88554.

    View basket More details Price: £320.00
  • BONA, Giovanni (1609-1674).
    L’ESTRANGE, Roger, Sir, (1616-1704), translator.
    A Guide to Eternity: Extracted out of the Writings of the Holy Fathers, and Ancient Philosophers. Written originally in Latine, by John Bona: and now done into English, by Roger L’Estrange Esq; the Second Edition. London, Henry Brome, 1680.

    Second [First] Edition in English. 12mo (133 x 67 mm), pp. [xii], 188, [4], advertisements, preliminary leaves including additional engraved title-page; engraved frontispiece and pp. [xlvi], 108, [2], 126, [4] advertisements, the frontispiece to the second work shaved close to the image (but not touching it) but with loss to some of the caption below the image, in contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label lettered in gilt, marbled edges, with the Hayhurst bookplate.

    Two scarce English translations of Italian devotional works, bound together in an attractive seventeenth century binding. Giovanni Bona was a Cistercian cardinal from Northern Italy… (more)

    Two scarce English translations of Italian devotional works, bound together in an attractive seventeenth century binding. Giovanni Bona was a Cistercian cardinal from Northern Italy known for his scholarship and simple manner of life. The first work in this volume is his Manuductio ad coelum, first published in 1658 and first translated into English in 1672. It has often been compared to Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, on account of the simplicity of the style in which the doctrine is explained. It was a hugely popular work, seeing a dozen editions by the end of the century and being translated into Italian, French, German, Armenian and Spanish as well as English. The second work in the volume is a translation of Bona’s Principia et documenta vitae Christianae, a comparable work which focuses on the principles of Christian conduct. The translation is usually ascribed to Luke Beaulieu.
    The first work has an additional title-page, engraved, ‘Manuductio ad coelum, or a guide to eternity’, by Frederick Hendrick van Hove (1629?-1698). The second work has an engraved frontispiece depicting Christ during his passion, also by F. H. van Hove.

    Guide to Eternity: Wing B3545; ESTC r23243, at BL, CUL, Bodleian, King’s Lynn; Harvard, Huntington, Union Theological, Illinois and Yale.
    Precepts: Wing B3553; ESTC r17339, at BL, CUL, Downside, Bodliean and Sion College; Columbia, Folger, Huntington, Union Theological, Clark, Illinois and Yale.

    View basket More details Price: £1,200.00
  • THOMSON, James, Rev. (fl. 1790-1816).
    Major Piper; or the Adventures of a Musical Drone. A Novel. In two Volumes. By the Rev. J. Thomson. Vol. I [-II]. Dublin, P. Wogan [&c.], 1794.

    First Dublin Edition. Two volumes, 12mo (170 x 100 mm), pp. [iv], 312; [ii], 307, some browning and creasing in text, a couple of gatherings very slightly sprung, in contemporary mottled calf, flat spines pressed out a little where the lower raised band would have been, spines ruled in gilt with red morocco labels lettered in gilt, rubbed at extremities with the front joint of Vol. I slightly cracked, but generally a handsome copy.

    A scarce comic novel by an obscure cleric from the Lake District whose literary output seems to have been confined to three novels which have… (more)

    A scarce comic novel by an obscure cleric from the Lake District whose literary output seems to have been confined to three novels which have all but disappeared. He is known to have lived in Westmoreland, where he supported a large family on the proceeds of a small curacy and a school, but whether his income was notably supplemented by the success of his writings is unknown. His first publication was The Denial; or, the Happy Retreat, London 1790, which was sufficiently popular to run both to a Dublin and a second London printing (each of which is listed in ESTC in a couple of copies). The present novel, originally published in London in the previous year by the Robinsons, is a substantial work of fiction which first appeared in the unusual format of five volumes. The first edition is similarly scarce, with ESTC (n4436) listing copies in the BL, Bodleian (ESTC appears to have listed the five volumes as five copies) and Minnesota (OCLC adds Berkeley). A second edition was published by Lane and Newman (though not designated as the Minerva Press) in 1803. Thomson’s third and final novel, Winifred, a tale of wonder, only survives in a London edition of 1803 (not in ESTC, though the BL has a copy).
    In the brief preface, Thomson describes the ‘two principle motives’ of fiction as being to amuse and instruct, suggesting that in combining the two in the present work, the more intelligent reader is likely to find but an ‘insipid entertainment’ in the ‘succession of incidents, and the narration of improbabilities, however surprizing, or however brilliant’ whereas he fears that other readers may find the moral reflections to be insipid. Contemporary reviewers seem to have focussed on the bizarre narrative structure and the humour rather than the moral and didactic passages. ‘He has published some novels of more ingenuity than morality’ concluded A Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors in 1816, whereas an earlier reviewer objected to the style of humour, comparing it to the less successful parts of Smollett’s writings: ‘Manners mistaken and misrepresented: conduct ridiculously absurd in characters laboured with the greatest care: adventures too improbable to amuse, and a vein of broad grotesque humour, of outré description, which Smollett introduced, and which his masterly hand could scarcely wield without exciting, at times, disgust. Under Mr. Thomson’s management, it is intolerable’ (Critical Review, 10: 472, April 1794).

    See Garside, Raven & Schöwerling 1793:40; Block p. 235; not in Hardy.

    ESTC t135341, at BL, Harvard & Library Company; OCLC adds NLS.

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  • The Works of Shakespeare. by SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616).
    SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616).
    The Works of Shakespeare. Glasgow, David Bryce, 1904.

    40 volumes, 64mo, (50 x 32 mm), each volume bearing a frontispiece with half-title on the recto, and with the dedication leaf ‘by Special Permission to Miss Ellen Terry’, printed on fine India paper, bound in contemporary green chamois leather, marble effect endpapers, central armorial device blind stamped on the front covers with blind stamped single fillet border extending across the spine to both covers, spines lettered in gilt, small chips to the spines of As You Like It, Venus & Adonis (split along joint) and King Lear (larger portion missing at foot of spine), the gilt faded to differing degrees by volume, the green colour of the reversed calf bindings faded along the spines and the front covers on volumes situated at the edge of the bookcase, gilt edges, the whole housed in the original plain polished oak swivelling bookcase.

    A delightful example of the most charming of David Bryce’s ‘Ellen Terry’ series of miniature literary sets. The 40 volumes include the plays, the sonnets,… (more)

    A delightful example of the most charming of David Bryce’s ‘Ellen Terry’ series of miniature literary sets. The 40 volumes include the plays, the sonnets, a biographical sketch and a glossary. The editor was J. Talfourd Blair.

    View basket More details Price: £1,500.00
  • Norris family copy by descent
    Memoirs of Adj. Gen. Ramel: by RAMEL, Jean-Pierre (1768-1815).PELICHET, C.L., translator.
    RAMEL, Jean-Pierre (1768-1815).
    PELICHET, C.L., translator.
    Memoirs of Adj. Gen. Ramel: containing certain facts relative to the Eighteenth Fructidor, his Exile to Cayenne, and Escape from Thence with Pichegru, Barthelemy, Willot, Aubry, Dossonville, Larue, and Le Tellier. Translated from the French Edition, published at Hamburg, 1799. By C.L. Pelichet, late of the Prince of Wales’s Fencible Infantry. Norwich, Kitton, 1805.

    FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. 8vo, (223 x 135 mm), pp. [ii], xxvi, 243, uncut throughout, in the original blue boards with white backstrip, spine chipped, printed label also chipped, boards rather stained, with the inscription of Frances Norris on the title-page, front pastedown and front cover (Miss F Norris).

    A scarce provincially printed English translation of this first hand account of the aftermath of the 18th Fructidor, originally published as Journal de l’adjutant-général Ramel,… (more)

    A scarce provincially printed English translation of this first hand account of the aftermath of the 18th Fructidor, originally published as Journal de l’adjutant-général Ramel, Londres 1799. After successfully defending Kehl from the attack of the Archduke Charles, Ramel had been promoted to Commander of the Guard of the Legislature, in which role he denounced the royalist conspiracy of Brottier in early 1797. Despite this, being suspected of royalist sympathies himself, he was denounced in the uprising of 18th Fructidor and was arrested and imprisoned in the Temple. Along with his friends Pichegru, Barthélémy, Laffon de Ladebat and Barbé-Marbois and some six hundred other royalists, Ramel was condemned and deported to the penal colonies in Guiana. In June 1798, Ramel escaped from the penal colony to Paramaribo and thence to London, where this vivid account of the miserable conditions of the camp at Sinnamary and of Ramel’s dering-do escape to England, via Surinam, Berbice and Demerary, was published to wide acclaim.
    At least three editions of the French text appeared under ‘Londres’ imprints in 1799; this translation was made from an edition printed in Hamburg in the same year. It was published by subscription and has an impressive list - some fifteen pages - of subscribers, including Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Caroline Lamb.

    ESTC n65263; Sabin 67627.

    View basket More details Price: £600.00
  • JOHNSON, Richard, compiler (1733 or 1734-1793).
    The Blossoms of Morality. Intended for the Amusement & Instruction of Young Ladies & Gentlemen. By the Editor of The Looking-Glass for the Mind. London, E. Newbery, 1789.

    First Edition. 12mo (170 x 100 mm), attractive engraved frontispice and pp. [vi], 212, engraved title-page vignette, tear to p. 85, through text but with no loss, in contemporary plain sheep, spine cracking, some scuffing to covers, plain spine ruled in gilt with faded ink title, headcap chipped, worn at extremities, with the contemporary ownership inscription of Ann Elliot on the front pastedown.

    The scarce first edition of this delightful collection of moral tales, attributed to the prolific children’s writer Richard Johnson. Illustrations by Bewick were added to… (more)

    The scarce first edition of this delightful collection of moral tales, attributed to the prolific children’s writer Richard Johnson. Illustrations by Bewick were added to the second and subsequent editions, of which there were many, including four in America, in Philadelphia, Wilmington and New York. The author is given on the title page as ‘by the editor of the Looking Glass for the Mind’, which was printed by Newbery in 1787 and which was actually by the French children’s writer Arnaud Berquin. It was translated by ‘J. Cooper’, one of the many pseudonyms of Richard Johnson.
    In his preface, the editor praises Berquin and other foreign writers whose books for the juvenile market ‘merit the highest encomiums’ and who have humbled themselves to deal in ‘the plain language of youth, in order to teach them wisdom, virtue, and morality’. The text comprises some 23 short stories, of varied length, style and setting, including such titles as ‘Juvenile Tyranny conquered’, ‘The Book of Nature’, ‘The happy Effects of Sunday Schools on the Morals of the rising Generation’, ‘The Happy Villager’, ‘The Indolent Beauty’ and ‘Female Courage properly considered’.

    Roscoe J39 (1); Osborne II 900.

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  • A Miscellany of Poems, by RELPH, Josiah (1712-1743).
    RELPH, Josiah (1712-1743).
    A Miscellany of Poems, Consisting of Original Poems, Translations, Pastorals in the Cumberland Dialect, Familiar Epistles, Fables, Songs, and Epigrams. By the late Revered Josiah Relph of Sebergham, Cumberland. With a Preface and a Glossary. Glasgow, Robert Foulis for Mr. Thomlinson, 1747.

    First Edition. 8vo, (250 x 120mm), pp. [xlix], 157, a few slightly browned pages and worming towards the end, touching some letters of the glossary and contents, but without serious loss, in the original sheep, single gilt fillet to covers, spine with raised bands, ruled in gilt, red morocco label lettered in gilt, joints cracked but firm and corners slightly worn.

    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… (more)

    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).

    ESTC t109779.

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  • FIELDING, Henry (1707-1754).
    The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and his friend Mr. Abraham Adams. By Henry Fielding, Esq. London, Newbery & Dublin, Walker, 1776.

    First Dublin Juvenile Edition. 16mo, (122 x 72 mm), engraved frontispiece (shaved at head) and pp. [xii], 166, many pages cut very close at the top, shaving a couple of headlines and page numbers, text generally grubby with a few pages particularly dog-eared, in the original Dutch floral boards, sometime rebacked (not very sensitively) with Dutch floral paper, internal paper restoration to front gutter, with a contemporary ownership inscription on the front free endpaper ‘Mr[s] Dealy oner [sic] of this Book... (?) June the 13th 1816’ and with contemporary manuscript accounts on the rear pastedown.

    A scarce Dublin printed abridgement of Joseph Andrews aimed at the children’s market. This is an excellent example of the middle ground of children’s literature,… (more)

    A scarce Dublin printed abridgement of Joseph Andrews aimed at the children’s market. This is an excellent example of the middle ground of children’s literature, where juvenile fiction intersects with and borrows from mainstream literature. Considerably fatter than most children’s books, this juvenile Fielding has very much the feel of a book: it is chunky, but it fits easily into a pocket, and, crucially, is bound in Dutch floral boards, the trademark binding of younger juveniles.

    Francis Newbery first published an abridged version of Joseph Andrews in 1769, accompanied by a frontispiece and five other engraved plates, an edition that Gumuchian describes as ‘excessively rare’. Further Newbery editions appeared in 1784, 1793, both with the illustrations and in 1799, without. This Dublin printed juvenile edition probably has nothing to do with the Newbery family, save the respectability of the borrowed name on the title-page.

    ESTC has five entries for actual Newbery printings of this title:
    i. London, F. Newbery, 1769 (Roscoe J131 (1), pp. xii, 149, [1], plates) ESTC t89898, at BL only. Cotsen also has an imperfect copy.
    ii. London, F. Newbery, 1769 (not in Roscoe), pp. x, 176 (ie. 196), plates) ESTC n4293, at Harvard only.
    iii. London, E. Newbery, 1784 (Roscoe J131 (2), pp. x, 163, [1], plates) ESTC t89899, at BL, Harvard, Morgan (2 copies), Toronto and Yale. Cotsen also has a copy, wanting two of the plates.
    iv. London, E. Newbery, 1793 (Roscoe J131 (3), pp. 180, plates) ESTC n17521, at Morgan only.
    v. London, E. Newbery, 1799 (Roscoe J131 (4), pp. 136, [8], frontispiece) ESTC n6990, at BL, Cambridge and UCLA.

    Not in Roscoe, but see J131; see also Gumuchian 2522 (Elizabeth Newbery’s 1784 edition, ‘excessively rare’) and 2523.

    ESTC t225861, at the British Library only.

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  • scarce provincial novel in unusual format
    Clerimont, by BRISCOE, C.W.
    BRISCOE, C.W.
    Clerimont, or, Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of Mr. B******. (Written by Himself.) Interspersed with Original Anecdotes of Living Characters. Liverpool, Charles Wosencroft, 1786.

    First Edition. 8vo in fours (208 x 120 mm), pp. vi, [7]-351, in contemporary sheep, front joint weak, some general wear to binding, red morocco label lettered in gilt.

    A very unusual novel that may in fact be an autobiographical memoir, with the ‘written by himself’ of the title page being, contrary to the… (more)

    A very unusual novel that may in fact be an autobiographical memoir, with the ‘written by himself’ of the title page being, contrary to the literary practice of the time, true. This is the only edition of this provincially printed novel charting the life and adventures of a feckless but charming rogue. Printed in Liverpool, in a single volume in fairly large octavo, 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.
    The Liverpool publisher, Charles Wosencroft, appears not to have published much, at least not much that has survived. Apart from his own work, The Liverpool Directory, for the year 1790, containing an alphabetical list of the gentlemen, merchants, traders, and principal inhabitants, of the town of Liverpool, ‘printed and sold’ by himself in 1790, his other publications were reprints of well-known and popular works. His first publication was Samuel Ancell’s A circumstantial journal of the long and tedious blockade and siege of Gibraltar, published by subscription, Liverpool 1784, of which ESTC lists nine editions printed between 1783 and 1786. This was followed by Lawrence Harlow’s The conversion of an Indian, Liverpool 1785, a best-seller first published in London in 1774 and finally an edition of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Liverpool 1782. The present novel is the exception to the rule: no other edition appears to have been printed anywhere and it appears to elude research: it is even one of the scantest entries in the Garside, Raven & Schöwerling’s bibliography.
    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’.

    ESTC t68953, at BL, Liverpool, Bodleian and Yale only; OCLC adds Chapel Hill.

    Garside, Raven & Schöwerling 1786:19; Block p. 27.

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  • Confessions in Elysium; by WIELAND, Christian Martin (1733-1813).ELRINGTON, John Battersby, translator.
    WIELAND, Christian Martin (1733-1813).
    ELRINGTON, John Battersby, translator.
    Confessions in Elysium; or the Adventures of a Platonic Philosopher; taken from the German of C.M. Wieland; by John Battersby Elrington, Esq. Vol. I [-III]. London, Minerva Press, Lane, Newman & Co., 1804.

    First Edition, Minerva Press (Second) Issue. Three volumes, 12mo (170x 96 mm), pp. viii, xvi, 200; [iv], 223; [iv], 228, upper corner of I B2 torn away (wear creased along fold), not touching text, rectangular tear from half title of volume III, with loss but not touching text, in contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spines ruled and numbered in gilt, red morocco labels lettered in gilt, surace wear to front joint of volume I, otherwise the bindings slightly tight and the spines a little bright and probably touched up, with the contemporary heraldic bookplate of John Congreve in each volume.

    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… (more)

    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.

    Blakey, The Minerva Press, p. 211; Garside, Raven & Schöwerling 1804:71.

    Both issues of this novel are very scarce. OCLC lists the Bell issue at Cambridge and London University only and this Minerva Press issue at Yale, New York Society Library and Penn only.

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  • SWIFT, Jonathan (1667-1745).
    DESFONTAINES, Abbé Pierre François Guyot (1685-1749), translator.
    Voyages de Gulliver. Tome Premier [-Second]. Paris, Guérin, 1727.

    First French Edition, First Issue. Two volumes in one, 12mo in eights and fours, pp. [vi], [vii]-xli, [v], 123, [1]; [125]-248; [vii], [i], 119, [1]; [121]-289, [3], with four engraved plates, unsigned, one to each part, in contemporary calf, sympathetically rebacked, spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label lettered in gilt, red edges, marbled endpapers, with the later bookplates of Henri Beraldi and La Goualante.

    Gulliver's Travels was an overnight best-seller in France. Following swiftly on the publication of the English text in late October 1726, the first French language… (more)

    Gulliver's Travels was an overnight best-seller in France. Following swiftly on the publication of the English text in late October 1726, the first French language edition, by an anonymous translator, appeared in the Hague in January 1727. This Desfontaines translation followed some three months later, in April 1727. Although it was less faithful to the original, being heavily abridged and at times almost closer to an adaptation than a translation, it was in Desfontaines’ version that Gulliver took France by storm. This is the first issue of the first appearance of that translation and the first publication of Gulliver in France. The Privilège du Roy, advertised at the foot of the imprint, had been granted to Hypolite-Louis Guérin on 20th March 1727. On the following day he shared it with two other local printers: 'faisant part du present Privilege aux Sieurs Gabriel Martin & Jacques Guérin'. Accordingly, the same printing of this first edition appears with two other imprints on the titles of both volumes.
    It was in this translation by Desfontaines’ that Swift’s work had a profound influence on French literature: ‘this shoddy but elegantly written version was repeatedly reissued in France well into the late 19th century, with a record 180 editions by the 1920s’ (Paul-Gabriel Boucé). Desfontaines went on to write his famous continuation, Le Nouveau Gulliver, which was also very popular and in turn saw translations into English, German and Italian. Graebar, who says that Desfontaines’ translation ‘outshines all later ones’, suggests that it was partly the abridged nature of Desfontaines’ version that ensured its success: ‘by reducing it to the expectations of his addressees, an approach that proved immediately as well as lastingly successful’.

    OCLC lists twenty copies, but only Getty, DLC, Delware, Illinois, Harvard, Princeton and Morgan in America.

    Cohen-de Ricci 210; not in Cioranescu; Teerink-Scouten 383.

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  • The Fables of John Dryden, by BEAUCLERK, Lady Diana (1734-1808), illustrator.DRYDEN, John (1631-1700).
    BEAUCLERK, Lady Diana (1734-1808), illustrator.
    DRYDEN, John (1631-1700).
    The Fables of John Dryden, ornamented with Engravings from the pencil of the Right Hon. Lady Diana Beauclerc. London, T. Bensley for J. Edwards, 1797.

    First Editions. Folio, (370 x 257mm), pp. [iv], xviii, 241, with nine engraved plates and fourteen part page engravings; engraved frontispiece and pp. [vii], [i], 35, [1], with four further engraved plates and four part page engravings, in parallel text, most of the paper guards still present at the plates, in a contemporary Irish black goatskin binding, gilt border to covers, spine gilt in compartments, lettered in gilt, extremities rubbed, contemporary inscription on the title page ‘W. Maguire’, the binding by George Mullen of Dublin, with his ticket.

    A good copy in an Irish binding of these two works lavishly illustrated by Lady Diana Beauclerk. The daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of… (more)

    A good copy in an Irish binding of these two works lavishly illustrated by Lady Diana Beauclerk. The daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, Lady Di, as she was known, suffered two miserable marriages, the first to Frederick St. John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke, during which they were both notoriously unfaithful, and the second to Topham Beauclerk (1739-1780), the great-grandson of Nell Gwyn and Charles II. Beauclerk was a close friend of Dr. Johnson and was known for his brilliant conversation, but he was also famous for his ill-humour and lack of personal hygiene: Fanny Burney recorded Edmund Burke’s reaction to the death of Beauclerk: ‘I never, myself, so much enjoyed the sight of happiness in another, as in that woman when I first saw her after the death of her husband’.
    ‘During [the years following her divorce] Lady Diana's artistic talents became particularly evident: she practised portraiture, and her enormous output of small drawings of fat cupids entangled in branches of grapes and little girls wearing mob caps gave place to larger and more ambitious groups of peasantry introduced into landscaped backgrounds. She worked chiefly in pen and ink, pastel, and watercolour. Essentially a designer, she successfully executed seven large panels in ‘soot ink’ (black wash), mounted on Indian blue damask and illustrating Horace Walpole's tragedy The Mysterious Mother. Apt to overrate her skills, Walpole placed these at Strawberry Hill in a specially designed hexagonal room named the Beauclerc closet. At the same time he opined absurdly that ‘Salvator Rosa and Guido could not surpass their expression and beauty’ (Anecdotes of Painting, 24.524). Lady Diana also enjoyed the patronage of Josiah Wedgwood, probably from 1785, when her designs, mostly those of laughing bacchanalian boys, were translated as bas-reliefs onto jasper ornaments, plates, and jugs; they proved to be enormously popular. In 1796 she illustrated the English translation of G. A. Burger's ballad Leonora and in 1797 The Fables of John Dryden; in both cases her illustrations were engraved mostly by Francesco Bartolozzi’ (ODNB). The other engravings in the Dryden are by Vandenberg, Cheeseman and Gardiner.

    ESTC t128162; t93829.

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  • DERRICK, Samuel (1724-1769).
    A Poetical Dictionary; or, the Beauties of the English Poets, Alphabetically Displayed. Containing the most Celebrated Passages in the following Authors, viz. Shakespear, Johnson, Dryden, Lee, Otway, Beaumont, Fletcher, Lansdowne, Butler, Southerne, Addison, Pope, Gay, Garth, Rowe, Young, Thompson, Mallet, Armstrong, Francis, Warton, Whitehead, Mason, Gray, Akenside, Smart, &c. In four volumes. Vol. I [-IV]. London, Newberry &c., 1761.

    First Edition. Four volumes, 12mo, (172 x 98mm), pp. xii, 288; [ii], 244; [ii], 276; [ii], 252, small marginal tear to the title of volume three, without loss, in contemporary half calf over marbled boards, flat spines simply ruled and numbered in gilt with black morocco labels lettered in gilt, with a library stamp marked ‘T.K.S.’ on the title-pages, partly obscuring the lettering, and with the booklabel of Old Sleningford Hall pasted on each title-page, partially or completely obscuring the ‘A’ of the title.

    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’),… (more)

    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).

    ESTC t42700; Roscoe A412.

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  • Original Poems on Several Occasions. by WHATELEY, Mary (1738-1825).
    WHATELEY, Mary (1738-1825).
    Original Poems on Several Occasions. By Miss Whateley. London, Dodsley, 1764.

    First Edition. 8vo, (210 x 135mm), pp. 9, [i], 24 list of subscribers, 11-117, [1], [2] contents, p. 78 misnumbered p. 87, some light browning, slightly sprung, in contemporary quarter sheep over marbled boards, lower joint cracked, front joint detached, with Lord Kilmorey’s ownership inscription on the title-page with the Esher heraldic bookplate.

    The author’s first book, published when she was 26. The daughter of William Whateley, a gentleman farmer at Beoley in Worcestershire, Miss Whateley appears to… (more)

    The author’s first book, published when she was 26. The daughter of William Whateley, a gentleman farmer at Beoley in Worcestershire, Miss Whateley appears to have had little formal education but she loved literature and began to write poetry at an early age, contributing poems to the Gentleman’s Magazine as early as 1759. These, and some other poems in manuscript, attracted the attention of some distinguished contemporaries including William Shenstone, William Woty and John Langhorne, who set in motion a scheme to publish a volume by subscription, to which Langhorne contributed some prefatory verses. The 24 page subscription list contains some 600 names, including Elizabeth Carter, Erasmus Darwin, Mrs. Delany and one Rev. Mr. J. Darwell, the man Miss Whateley was to marry. John Darwall, Vicar of Walsall, was also a poet as well as a composer. The husband and wife together ran a printing press and she wrote songs for his congregation which he set to music. They also had six children together, to add to his six from a previous marriage.
    The collection includes a number of pastoral poems - ‘artless rural Verse’ as she describes her ‘Elegy Written in a Garden (pp. 56-59) - several odes and poems addressed to individuals as well as some poems reflecting contemporary debate such as that ‘Occasioned by reading some Sceptical Essays’ (pp. 53-55). The final poem in the collection balances the prefatory verses supplied by one of her patrons: ‘To the Rev. Mr. J. Langhorne, on reading his Visions of Fancy, &c.’. Also included is a poem addressed to her future husband: ‘Ode to Friendship. Inscribed to the Rev. Mr. J. Darwall’:
    ‘Hail! Friendship, Balm of ev’ry Woe!
    From thy pure Source Enjoyments flow,
    Which Death alone can end:
    Tho’ Fortune’s adverse Gales arise,
    Tho’ Youth, and Health, and Pleasure flies,
    Unmov’d remains the Friend’ (p. 101).
    With a seven page dedication to the Hon. Lady Wrottesley, at Perton. The contents leaf, printed as part of the last signature, is here bound at the end. In some copies it has been bound at the front. Despite the wear to the spine, this is an appealing copy in an attractive contemporary binding. A Dublin edition was published later the same year.

    ESTC t90935.

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  • Presentation Copy
    BAYLY, Nathaniel Thomas Haynes (1797-1839).
    Fifty Lyrical Ballads. By Thomas Haynes Bayly. Bath, Mary Mayler, 1829.

    First Edition. 4to, (238 x 190 mm), pp. [iv], 80, entirely untrimmed, in the original drab boards, worn at extremities with spine delicate, most of the printed paper label still present, foxing to endleaves but the text generally very clean, inscribed on the title-page ‘Mrs D... (?) From the Author’.

    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… (more)

    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.

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  • the noblest of arts defends the noblest of [dissenting] causes
    AIKIN, John (1747-1822).
    Poems, by J. Aikin, M.D. London, J. Johnson, 1791.

    First Edition. 8vo, (195 x 113 mm), pp. x, 136, some scattered foxing in the text, in contemporary calf, spine simply ruled in gilt with red morocco label lettered in gilt, front joint just beginning to crack, some wear to extremities and light fading on the covers.

    A collection of poems by the physician, dissenter and writer John Aikin, printed by his friend Joseph Johnson. Aikin spent his early career as a… (more)

    A collection of poems by the physician, dissenter and writer John Aikin, printed by his friend Joseph Johnson. Aikin spent his early career as a surgeon but when he found this unprofitable he turned to medicine, gained a degree at Leiden and established a medical practice in Norfolk where his sister, Anna Letitia Barbauld, the renowned educationalist, lived. Two of the poems in this collection, including the opening poem, are addressed to her. Aikin’s time in Norfolk was dogged by divisions between the dissenters and the established church. Among his circle, most of those who shared his literary tastes were on the side of the Church of England but Aikin, who felt keenly the injustice of excluding dissenters from office, published two pamphlets in 1790 in which he put forward a case for toleration. Although the pamphlets were published anonymously, Aikin’s authorship was widely known and it was largely this, as well as his public support of the French revolution, that lost him the support of most of his friends and patients and made his professional life in Norfolk unsustainable.
    It was at this low point, largely ostracised for his dissenting views and before his successful move to London in 1792, that Aikin published these poems. In the preface he explained that mixed with the more general poems are a few that may not meet with impartial judgement. ‘They will certainly meet with as decided a condemnation from one set of readers, as they can possibly obtain applause from another... with a mind strongly impressed with determined opinions on some of the most important topics that actuate mankind, I could not rest satisfied without attempting to employ (as far as I possessed it) the noblest of arts, in the service of the noblest of causes’ (pp. iii-iv).
    Aikin’s daugher and biographer, Lucy Aikin, described his move to London as ‘a blessed change’, as the dissenters there welcomed him as ‘a kind of confessor in the cause’ (Aikin, Memoir of John Aikin, 1823, p. 152). In 1796 he became literary editor of the Monthly Magazine, he also wrote for the Monthly Review and edited The Athenaeum for a while. His circle of friends there included Erasmus Darwin, John Howard, the philanthropist (whose biography he wrote and whose death is commemorated by a poem in this collection), Robert Southey, Thomas Pennant and the radical publisher Joseph Johnson. Aikin also wrote Johnson’s obituary for the Gentleman’s Magazine.

    ESTC t85576.

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  • The Seasons, by THOMSON, James (1700-1748).TIMAEUS, Johann Jacob Carl (d. 1809), editor.MURDOCH, Patrick (d. 1774).AIKIN, John (1747-1822).
    THOMSON, James (1700-1748).
    TIMAEUS, Johann Jacob Carl (d. 1809), editor.
    MURDOCH, Patrick (d. 1774).
    AIKIN, John (1747-1822).
    The Seasons, by James Thomson. To which is prefixed the Life of the Author, by Patrick Murdoch, D.D.F.R.S. and An Essay on the Plan and Character of the Poem, by J. Aikin. A New Edition Revised and Corrected by J.J.C. Timaeus. Hamburg, Herold, 1791.

    8vo, (200 x 125mm), pp. [2] engraved title-page, [iv] title-page and dedication, lxvii, [i], 179, [1], in contemporary half calf over yellow boards, spine simply ruled in gilt with red morocco label lettered in gilt, pretty red patterned endpapers.

    A charming copy of a scarce Hamburg printed, English language edition of Thomson’s Seasons. With a second title-page, attractively engraved with bucolic depiction of the… (more)

    A charming copy of a scarce Hamburg printed, English language edition of Thomson’s Seasons. With a second title-page, attractively engraved with bucolic depiction of the seasons, a dedication to Christian Daniel Ebeling, signed John Timaeus, Patrick Murdoch’s life of James Thomson and John Aikin’s critical appraisal of the poem, first published in 1778.

    ESTC t623 at BL, Camden Libraries, NLS, Lodz, Gottingen, Torun, Smith, Clark and Victoria University.

    Price, The Publication of English Literature in Germany in the Eighteenth Century, p. 238.

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  • ‘the best I have been able to find so far... indeed the only one’
    BECKFORD, William (1759-1844).
    Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha. By the author of “Vathek”. London, Bentley, 1835.

    First Edition. 8vo, (213 x 128mm), frontispiece portrait and pp. [iii]-xi, [i], 228, bound without the half title, in contemporary half calf over brown and cream marbled boards, spine simply ruled in gilt with label lettered in gilt: the headcap and top section (up to 17mm) of the spine missing, marbled endpapers, inscribed on the initial blank ‘? Goldsworthy March 1842... This Book is the property of Mrs Goldsworthy’ and with the later booklabel of Philip O’Riordan Smiley, with bookseller’s order form loosely inserted.

    One of Beckford’s most readable and entertaining works, his Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha is an idealised compression of… (more)

    One of Beckford’s most readable and entertaining works, his Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha is an idealised compression of several visits to Portugal into one single twelve-day journey, based on diary notes made during a visit in 1794 - a trip during which he did not actually visit Batalha at all. However, it was his visits to Batalha which enchanted him and which inspired him in his designs for Fonthill Abbey, even though his impressions were not published until so many years after the event.
    ‘[Beckford’s] Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha is a charming, heavily humorous concoction... some biographers rate this short piece as his finest writing, and it is indeed a delightful evocation of a lost world, authentic in detail even if contrived in construction’ (Timothy Mowl, William Beckford: Composing for Mozart, 1998, pp. 217-300).
    This copy has a piece of leather missing from the top of the spine, which rather mars its looks. Curiously, it contains an amusing piece of its history in the quotation sheet from a previous sale which is loosely inserted. ‘This is the best I have been able to find so far’, writes John Lyle, New and Second-hand Bookseller, to P. O’R. Smiley, Esq, of Victoria House, Ampleforth, Yorks. ‘Indeed, the only one. If you wish me to buy it for you, please reply at once to make sure of securing it’. Evidently, Philip O’Riordan, who was Head of Classics at Ampleforth College, replied in time to secure the volume, as it bears his booklabel. It set him back the princely sum of £3 post free.

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  • written for Madame de Maintenon’s young ladies
    RACINE, Jean (1639-1699).
    The Sacred Dramas of Esther & Athalia: translated from the French of Racine: Edinburgh, John Moir for Manners and Miller, 1803.

    First Edition of this Translation. 8vo, (125 x 214mm), pp. [vi], 154, [1] errata, with the half-title, in contemporary tree calf, spine simply ruled in gilt, red morocco label lettered in gilt, with the heraldic bookplate of Sir James Campbell of Stracathro.

    An anonymous verse translation of two plays by Racine. The first is Racine’s final tragedy, Athalie, first performed in 1691 and considered one of his… (more)

    An anonymous verse translation of two plays by Racine. The first is Racine’s final tragedy, Athalie, first performed in 1691 and considered one of his greatest achievements: Voltaire thought it the greatest triumph of the human mind while Flaubert, in Madame Bovary, ranked it as the masterpiece of the French stage. The second play translated here is the lesser-known Esther, 1689, a work in three acts written for the young ladies of Madame de Maintenon’s academy, the Maison Royale de Saint Louis. A note in the 1876 translation by Caroline Andrews reads: ‘As the translator has followed closely the original, she hopes to recommend the same to the attention of lady educators’.

    With a dedication to the Duchess of Gordon and a brief address to the reader: ‘The Translator has often admired the sublimity of sentiment, and elegant simplicity that reign in the sacred dramas of Racine. He has reaped both pleasure and edification from the perusal of these pieces, so justly esteemed by those who have a relish for sacred poetry: Hence he has been induced to believe that a translation of them, imitating closely the simple manner and style of the originals, might afford a similar gratification to the well-disposed British reader’.

    OCLC lists BL, NLS, Edinburgh University, Stanford, Chicago, Michigan and Princeton.

    View basket More details Price: £200.00
  • first appearance of poems by Aphra Behn and Congreve
    BEHN, Aphra (1640-1689), contributor.
    CONGREVE, William (1670-1729), contributor.
    GILDON, Charles (1665-1724), editor and contributor.
    Miscellany Poems upon Several Occasions: Consisting of Original Poems, by the late Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Cowley, Mr. Milton, Mr. Prior, Mrs. Behn, Mr. Tho. Brown, &c. And the Translations from Horace, Persius, Petronius Arbiter, &c. With an Essay on Satyr, by the famous Mr. Dacier. Licens’d May 21. 1692. London, Peter Buck, 1692.

    First Edition. 8vo, (172 x 100mm), pp. [xxxii], 112, in contemporary red morocco, double filet border to covers, central panel gilt, with gilt fleurons at the corners and small oval floral tooling at the mid-point of the panels, some rubbing, unlettered spine simply ruled in gilt, with the booklabel of J.O. Edwards.

    A handsome copy in red morocco of one of the most interesting poetical miscellanies of the late seventeenth century. This collection marks the poetical debut… (more)

    A handsome copy in red morocco of one of the most interesting poetical miscellanies of the late seventeenth century. This collection marks the poetical debut of William Congreve, at the age of twenty-two. His contributions include two imitations of Horace, a Pindaric ode called ‘Upon a Lady’s Singing’, addressed to the well-known soprano, Arabella Hunt, and two songs, ‘The Message’ and ‘The Decay’, signed only with initials. Also of particular interest are three poems by Aphra Behn, all printed here for the first time: ‘On a Conventicle’, ‘Venus and Cupid’ and ‘Verses design’d by Mrs. A. Behn, to be sent to a fair lady, that desir’d she would absent herself, to cure her love’, the last one being ‘left unfinished’.
    This is one of the earliest productions of Charles Gildon, at the start of his long and productive, if sometimes controversial, literary career. His own contributions include the translation from Dacier, two poems addressed ‘To Syliva’, an imitation of Perseus and a ten-page dedication to Cardell Goodman, a prominent and wealthy actor, who Gildon clearly had in his sights as a patron. ‘As to the book, Sir, I present you with, I am extreamly satisfy’d to know, that it is a present worth your acceptance; for I may say that there has scarce been a collection which visited the world, with fewer trifling verses in it. I except my own, which I had the more encouragement to print now, since I had so good an opportunity of making so large an attonement, with the wit of others for my dulness, and that I hope will chiefly excuse them to you, as well as convince the world of the real value I have for you, when it sees me prefix your name to no vulgar book, of my own composing, but to one that ows [sic] its excellence to the generous contributions of my friends of undoubted wit’ (Epistle Dedicatory, p. xi).

    ESTC r21564, predictably common in England, especially in Oxford and Cambridge, but fairly scarce in America: Folger, Harvard, Huntington, Newberry, Clark, Kansas, Texas and Yale.

    Wing G733A; Case 197; O’Donnell, Aphra Behn, BB20.

    View basket More details Price: £5,000.00