[Rarebooks] fa: LIFE & ERRORS OF JOHN DUNTON - BOOKSELLER, PRINTER, CRACKPOT - 1818

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, April 22. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/86sq6yf

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

The Life and Errors of John Dunton, Citizen of London; With the Lives and Characters of More than a Thousand Contemporary Divines, and Other Persons of Literary Eminence. To which are added, Dunton's Conversation in Ireland; Selections from his Other Genuine Works, and a Faithful Portrait of the Author. London: J. Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1818. Second edition, but first edition thus. Two volumes, 8vo, bound in modern full calf preserving original leather spines and gilt-stamped devices on front covers of Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Rothesay (a lion rampant, with the motto "Nobilis Ira"); [4], [v]-xxxii, xx, [21]-413, [1]; [2], [413]-774pp.; engraved frontispiece portrait.

Eccentric, almost Tristram Shandy-esque autobiography of John Dunton (1659-1733), the ingenious, erratic, prolific, nonconformist-leaning and diehard Whig bookseller, printer and pamphleteer. Some light foxing and toning to the first and last 2-3 leaves, very occasional faint spots elsewhere, otherwise exceedingly clean, bright and fresh in sharp, handsome bindings with just a touch of rubbing. A near-fine or better set.

Dunton is best known for publishing the popular coffee-house periodical The Athenian Gazette from 1691-97 (see our other auctions for several numbers), but he was an incurable scribbler about most of the issues of his time, both significant (religion, the Glorious Revolution, Jacobinism, etc.)  and insignificant (his mother-in-law). For a brief period (1685-86) he was a bookseller in New England, and his Life and Errors contains an account of his time in Boston, Cambridge, Salem, etc., and the people he met there, including the Rev. John Eliot, missionary to the Indians and translator of the Bible into the Massachusetts language. Also of great interest are the innumerable detailed and colorful descriptions of many of the English, Irish and American booksellers and "hackney writers" of the period. "Stuffed with minute details of his eventful life… this gossipy, inaccurate and opinionated work relates the 'stages' of the author's life, each 'stage' followed by a chapter explaining what Dunton would do if he could live it again… He wrote the book in 'retirement' in the country, estranged from his second wife over the marriage settlement, out of bookselling because of debts, and in the mood to settle scores against enemies, praise his friends, and let the world know of his own importance" (Gilbert D. McEwen, The Oracle of the Coffee-House, Huntington Library, 1972).