[Rarebooks] fa: LAURENCE STERNE - A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 1768 - 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 again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


[Laurence Sterne:] A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. By Mr. Yorick. London: Printed for T. Becket and P.A. de Hondt, in the Strand, MDCCLXVIII [1768]. Two volumes, 12mo (16 cm), in full period calf, gilt-ruled borders, gilt-lettered morocco spine labels; [2], 199, [1] pp.; [4], 208 pp.; half-title in vol. II. ESTC T14766; T14750.

A set made up of two of the three editions that appeared in 1768: vol. I is "A New Edition" and vol. II is the Second Edition, both issued in the same year and by the same publisher as the first edition. Bindings with modest bumping to the corners; joints and spine ends professionally repaired/restored, as are the torn top corners of the front (blank) endpapers; mild toning to the title-pages and half-title, some bumping and creases to the corners of the leaves, a hint of darkening/dust-soiling to the top edge of the text blocks, a very few occasional small spots; otherwise contents are quite clean and bright, firmly bound. A sound, handsome early printing of Sterne's classic semi-factual travel book. Sterne died before he could finish it, which is a shame, of course, but the result is one of the great (unfinished) last lines in English literature.

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.