[Rarebooks] fa: LORD ERSKINE - ARMATA: A FRAGMENT 1817 - LORD ELDON'S COPY (Imaginary Voyage/Utopian World)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 27. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/gv2n2yg

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine:] Armata: A Fragment. London: John Murray, 1817. FIRST EDITION, first printing. Tall 8vo (24 cm), untrimmed in original boards, rebacked to style with printed spine label; [2] + 209 + [5] pp.; with 4 pp. of publisher's adverts at the end dated January, 1817. Wolff 2096; Bleiler 686.

A fantastical "political romance" in which the shipwrecked narrator is transported to a parallel Earth on which he finds the island kingdom of Armata, a parallel version of England, a conceit that allows the author to make satirical observations on the politics, mores and social ills of his day. The book is considered the first work of science fiction written by a Scot and the first novel to feature a parallel or twin world. A sequel, The Second Part of Armata, was published later the same year. Lord Erskine (1750-1823) was one of the leading Whig politicians and lawyers of the late-Georgian era, a champion of liberal causes famous (or notorious) for defending numerous radicals and reformers, including Lord George Gordon, Thomas Paine, Thomas Hardy, et al, against charges of sedition and treason. He served as Lord Chancellor from 1806-07.

From the library of Lord Eldon, Erskine's political nemesis and his immediate predecessor and successor as Lord Chancellor. Politically, the book's owner and author could not have been more different. John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon, a close adviser to George III and George IV, was an arch-Tory champion of government and the status quo, and the proponent and enforcer of some of the most draconian sedition laws in British history. He was Lord Chancellor for twenty-six years (1801-1827) with only one year's break, that being Erskine's brief tenure in the office. In addition to Eldon's signature and armorial book label on the front paste-down, there is a ms. note tipped in opposite the title page: "[Name excised] returns Armata with many thanks. He has no very high opinion of its merit, as the idea is borrowed from Swift, and the arguments only the same as those of Lord Erskines own pamphlet against Pitt which nobody read a second time. The noble Author is a most admirable Advocate in the Courts of Law, but not so as a political Speaker or Writer." With the additional signature on the title-page of "Rolle," presumably John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle, conservative MP and later member of the House of Lords, a political ally of Lord Eldon and the principal target of the popular 18th-century satire, The Rolliad (1785).

Modest bumping to the corners of the boards, light toning and dust-soiling to the untrimmed edges of the text block, otherwise the contents are exceedingly clean, bright and fresh, firmly bound. A Fine copy with an intriguing provenance.