[Rarebooks] FS: Walpole on Richard III, Strawberry Hill Press, 1768

[Greg Powers]

I can offer...

Walpole, Horace.  Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third.  London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1768.  xv, 134, [2] pp.  4to, full contemporary calf with attractive gilt-tooled spine. Engraved portrait frontispiece and one other engraved plate.  Upper joint just starting at the head, rear joint cracked but still holding firm, spine ends just nicked; the captions on the plates have been trimmed during binding.  Contemporary bookplate on the pastedown and with that owner’s signature at the head of the title-page.  A very good copy in an attractive contemporary binding.  First edition, published in an edition of 1250 copies and printed at Walpole’s Strawberry Hill Press.  According to Walpole, the first edition sold so quickly that a second edition was immediately undertaken.  Walpole’s defense of Richard I against what he considered the unfair vilification of earlier historians (as well as Shakespeare) was one of his most ambitious works.  Not surprisingly it proved quite controversial, spawning a host of published replies and answers over the next several decades.  Lowndes IV, p. 2821.  CBEL II, p. 838.  Hazen 19.

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$500 plus shipping

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