[Rarebooks] fa: JOHN TOLAND - LIFE OF JOHN MILTON + AMYNTOR or A DEFENCE OF MILTON'S LIFE 1699

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

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

http://tinyurl.com/hoflz22

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain


[John Toland:] The Life of John Milton, containing, besides the History of his Works, several Extraordinary Characters of Men and Books, Sects, Parties, and Opinions. London: Printed by John Darby in Bartholomew Close, 1699. [WITH:] Amyntor: or, A Defence of Milton’s Life. London: Printed, and are to be sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1699. FIRST EDITIONS. Two works in one volume, 8vo, bound in early boards, housed in a clamshell box; 165, [1] pp.; [2], 172 pp. ESTC R12037, R22638; Wing T1766, T1760.

A freethinker with republican sympathies, the young John Toland (1670-1722)admired English radicals of the Civil War era such as James Harrington, Algernon Sydney and, most especially, John Milton. His life of Milton was criticized in an anonymous work entitled, Remarks on the Life of Mr. Milton, which drew forth Toland's Amyntor in response. The latter work also contains a "history" of the Eikon Basilike, supposedly written by Charles I but here attributed by Toland to John Gauden, a determination with which most subsequent scholars agree.

Old boards worn and soiled, lacking backstrip, but the binding, while tender, is holding together; now housed in a modern cloth-covered  clamshell box; leaves with modest toning and occasional soiling (most noticeable on the title-pages), small area of worming to the bottom of the last few leaves of the Life, but generally quite clean and sound. Early/original owner's neat ink notation on the integral preliminary blank leaf: "Toland's Life of Milton and Defence of ye Same." From the library of noted book collector Hugh Selbourne, with his discreet ownership stamp on the verso of the title-page.