[Rarebooks] fa: OLIVER GOLDSMITH - VICAR OF WAKEFIELD 1766 - ExLibris LORD ELDON

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other 17th, 18th, & 19th-century titles, auctions ending Sunday, October 7. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/9lho2bh

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


[Oliver Goldsmith:] The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale. Supposed to be written by Himself… The Second Edition. London: Printed for F. Newbery, in Pater-Noster-Row, MDCCLXVI [1766]. Two volumes, tall 12mo (17.25 cm), in full period calf, gilt-ruled borders, gilt-lettered morocco spine labels; [8], 214 pp.; [6], 223, [1] pp. ESTC T146180; Roscoe A200 (3).

The second edition, but the first London edition, published only two months after the first Salisbury edition, and significant for containing more than 450 revisions by Goldsmith, resulting in what is considered the definitive text of his most enduring work, one of the great comic/sentimental novels of the 18th century. Bindings with modest bumping to the corners, two joints professionally repaired/reinforced; two page-gatherings in vol. I standing a bit proud (protruding) from the text block, but secure (it appears to have happened in the original binding process); some offsetting from the the original binder's glue to the edges of first and last few leaves; general light toning to the leaves, some darkening and light wear to the edges, a few leaves with short edge-tears not affecting text; occasional small spots and touches of soiling. An essentially sound and externally handsome set.

From the library of John Scott (1751-1838), 1st Earl of Eldon and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain; with his signatures ("Eldon") and armorial bookplates in both volumes. Lord Eldon was a close adviser to both George III and George IV, and one of the pre-eminent figures in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English politics, successively Solicitor General, Attorney General, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and, ultimately, Lord Chancellor, holding that title, with only a year's break, for twenty-six years. One front-endpaper bears the early ink signature of another member of the family ("W[?] Scott"), possibly Lord Eldon's father or older brother, both named William.