[Rarebooks] fa: SAMUEL GARTH - THE DISPENSARY 1699 - SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR - Satire on Medicine

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, September 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/kzjk5x6

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.



[Samuel Garth:] The Dispensary: A Poem. In Six Cantos. London: Printed and Sold by John Nutt near Stationers Hall, 1699. Third edition (published the same year as the first). SIGNED on the dedication. Slim 8vo (19.5 cm) in period sprinkled panled calf, rebacked; [22] + 94 pp.; engraved frontispiece and an additional engraved portrait laid down onto the verso of the title-page. ESTC R8029.

Modest bumping and wear to the corners, rubbing to the joints; frontispiece trimmed close at the fore-edge; bound without the terminal blank leaf; mild toning to the leaves with some darkening to the edges, occasional small scattered spots; otherwise clean and sound, firmly bound. Early/original owner's signature of E. Heyrick; later small bookplate of Andrew Davis on the front paste-down; rear paste-down with a description of the book clipped from a 1959 bookseller's catalogue tipped in.

A satirical burlesque recounting the efforts of the Royal College of Physicians to establish a dispensary for the poor of London "against the determined opposition of the apothecaries, who refused to supply medicines cheaply, though the physicians gave their services free. All the leading men on both sides appear in the poem ... and fight an epic but indecisive battle" (Kurnitz & Haycraft). The frontispiece shows the College's Cutlerian Theatre, designed by Robert Hooke. Samuel Garth (1661-1719) was a physician as well as a poet, a fellow of the Royal College and, after the accession of George I, physician-in-ordinary to the king. He was also a member of the legendary Kit Kat Club and a close friend of Addison, Steele and their circle. The Dispensary was his finest and most popular literary achievement, going through at least ten editions.