[Rarebooks] fa: THE ETONIAN 1821 - 2 vols./10 issues/Complete - Poetry & Literary Journal

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, May 15. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/j635f58

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI


The Etonian. Vol. I. October 1820—March 1821. [and] Vol. II. April 1821—August 1821. Windsor: Knight and Dredge [et al], 1821. Two volumes, ten issues (all published); 8vo (21.5 cm), in period half calf and marbled boards, gilt-lettered morocco spine labels; [2], 400 pp.; [2], 446 pp.; with the errata slip at the end of vol. II; woodcut title vignette of the King of Clubs on both volume title-pages.

A complete run of this precocious literary, poetical, and critical journal edited by the precocious Winthrop Mackworth Praed. Stated second edition of issue no. 1, but presumed first editions of all the others. W. M. Praed (1802-1839), who would grow up to be a poet and politician of some renown, started a manuscript journal, "Apis Matina," in 1820 while attending Eton. "It was succeeded by The Etonian, the most famous of school journals. Walter Blount was Praed's colleague as editor. Some of his contributors were already at college. Among the chief writers were H. N. Coleridge [S. T. Coleridge's nephew and the brother of John Taylor Coleridge], Sidney Walker, C. H. Townshend, and John Moultrie, who describes Praed in his ‘Dream of Life’. Praed signed his articles as ‘Peregrine Courtenay,’ the imaginary president of the ‘King of Clubs,’ supposed to conduct the paper. Charles Knight (1791-1873) published The Etonian, which lasted for ten months" (DNB). William Wordsworth was familiar with the magazine: in March of 1821, he wrote his friend Crabb Robinson praising a "Youngster who writes verses in The Etonian, to some of which our Cumberland paper has introduced me, & some I saw at Cambridge." The poetry society bearing Praed's name still exists at Eton.

Bindings show rubbing, wear to the edges; rear boards with some loss to the marbled paper; contents unusually fresh and bright with just a few scattered small spots. A very clean and tight copy.