[Rarebooks] fa: OLLA PODRIDA 1788 - Oxford literary periodical w/ OED association: FITZEDWARD HALL

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auctions ending Sunday, February 17. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/al7rkjj

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

[Thomas Monro, editor:] The Olla Podrida. A Periodical Work, Complete in Forty-four Numbers. London: Printed by J. Nichols: and sold by C. Dilly in the Poultry, and C.S. Rann, at Oxford, 1788. Period half calf and marbled boards, sympathetically rebacked with modern calf, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; 8vo; [2], 443, [1] pp. ESTC T101900.

Named after a Spanish stew, The Olla Podrida, published March 1787-January 1788, was a mélange of literary, cultural and bibliographical essays written mostly by Oxonians. This copy is of additional interest for its provenance: the front paste-down bears the nineteenth-century engraved bookplate of Fitzedward Hall ("E Libris Fitzedvardi Hall… Oxon."). Hall (1825-1901), an American-born orientalist, philologist and eccentric recluse, played a leading role in the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1869 he was dismissed from his post as Professor of Sanskrit at King's College after an ugly dispute with a fellow academic; expelled from the Philological Society, abandoned by his family, Hall withdrew to a remote cottage where he lived as a virtual hermit for the rest of his days. From 1881 till his death twenty years later he worked at least four hours a day as an unpaid contributor to the OED, poring over proof sheets,  contributing definitions and quotations, correcting errors, filling up deficiencies. Though James Murray, editor of the OED at the time, never met Hall face-to-face, he corresponded with him almost daily and extolled his efforts in the great cause: "Time would fail to tell of the splendid assistance rendered to the Dictionary by Dr. Fitzedward Hall, who devotes nearly his whole day to reading the proofs...and to supplementing, correcting, and increasing the quotations taken from his own exhaustless stores. When the Dictionary is finished, no man will have contributed to its illustrative wealth so much as Fitzedward Hall.…" (For a lively account of Hall's strange and troubled life, see Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Binding with some rubbing and wear to the edges and corners; front free-endpaper creased; toning and spotting to the first and last several leaves, occasional small spots elsewhere; two light penciled notes in the margins of the preface (identifying the surnames of contributors); otherwise clean and sound, firmly bound.