[Rarebooks] fa: JAMES THOMSON - THE SEASONS 1793 - w/ ENGRAVINGS by STOTHARD

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 29. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/qgtya4x

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

James Thomson: The Seasons; With his Life, an Index and Glossary, a Dedication to the Earl of Buchan, and Notes to the Seasons, by Percival Stockdale. London: Printed [by T. Chapman] for A. Hamilton, Gray's Inn Gate, Holborn, 1793. First edition thus. Tall 8vo (25 cm) in full tree calf; [2], xxiv, 221, [22], 224-227, [1] pp.; list of subscribers, frontispiece, engraved title-page, vignettes and plates (after Stothard, Singleton and Ramsey). ESTC T18661.

With the engraved title-page, 5 plates (including the frontispiece), and 8 engraved vignette head- and tail-pieces. A handsomely printed edition of Thomson's hugely popular work, first published in 1730. This is the first Stockdale edition, with his dedication dated Jan. 19, 1793. Binding with a scuff to the front board, bumping/wear to the corners and spine ends; rear board detached, front hinge cracked but the board is holding; contents with occasional mild browning and offsetting from the plates, a few scattered small spots, but generally quite clean and bright. Front endpapers with the small monogram booklabel and penciled comments of noted book collector Peter A. Wick.

The Seasons, a cycle of four poems originally published separately, was phenomenally successful, often reprinted, and remained popular well into the 19th century. A precursor of Cowper and Gray, Thomson (1700-1748) holds "a unique place in English literature, as the first poet to treat landscape objectively... In these poems ... natural description is not merely incidental to man (who indeed does not appear), but is the poet's chief concern" (Kunitz & Haycraft).