[Rarebooks] fa: ALEXANDER POPE - ESSAY ON MAN 1734 + Epistles, Satires, Dunciad - 4to/FINE PAPER

[ArCh]

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

http://tinyurl.com/y93zryy8

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Alexander Pope:] An Essay on Man, Being the First Book of Ethic Epistles. To Henry St. John, L. Bolingbroke. London: Printed by John Wright, for Lawton Gilliver, MDCCXXXIV [1734]. First edition thus. [WITH: Ethic Epistles, the Second Book. To Several Persons. AND Satires of Horace Imitated. To which are added, Satires of Dr. John Donne Versify'd by the same Hand. AND Epitaphs by Mr. Pope. AND The Dunciad, in Three Books, Written in the Year 1727. With Notes Variorum, and the Prolegomena of Scriblerus.] Together, five works in one volume. Thick 4to (27.5 cm) in later half calf and marbled boards with a gilt-lettered spine label (misidentifying the authorship: "Bolingbroke's Essay on Man"), marbled page edges; copper-engraved vignettes and initials and woodcut decorations throughout. Griffith 338, ESTC T5607 (for the first title).

The first collected edition of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man (comprising the first four epistles), bound with four other works by Pope, the latter  presumably taken from the publisher Gilliver's 1735-36 editions of his collected works. The Essay on Man conforms with the ESTC collation and is apparently Griffith's variant 338 printed on "extraordinarily thick fine paper." With the half-title page present. The other four works are likewise printed on the same rich, heavy laid paper, and all five are richly embellished with fine copper-engraved and/or woodcut decorations. The four latter works begin with half-titles instead of full title-pages; the pagination is sometimes irregular, but the text appears to be continuous (i.e., in the Ethic Epistles, epistle IV directly follows epistle III despite a gap in the pagination).

The book has one flaw of note: it is lacking the last two leaves (pp. 211-214) of the notes at the end of The Dunciad, and the two leaves following (the final leaves in the book, pp. 215-218 of the "variations") are damaged at the gutter with significant loss. That aside, the contents are generally fine indeed: bright clean and fresh, with only very occasional faint spotting and soiling, some offsetting from the engravings, and one leaf (B1 of Satires of Horace) with a closed horizontal tear; binding with modest edge-wear and rubbing. Title-page with the ownership signature of Sir Gerald Codrington, Bart., and the front paste-down with an engraved bookplate bearing the Codrington arms and motto ("Vultus in hostem"). On the same paste-down is the small 19th-century label of "J. Iles, Bookbinder & Printer, Chipping Sudbury," and the later bookplate of of noted English bibliophile Charles Benson. A very handsome volume.

COLLATION: An Essay on Man: [8], [1-7], 8-74 pp. (as per ESTC, p. 54 misnumbered as 45); Ethic Epistles, the Second Book [6], [47]-71, [3], 8-27 (i.e., 29: page numbers 15 and 16 are repeated), [39]-78 pp.; Satires of Horace Imitated [2], 87, [1] pp. (p. 72 misnumbered as 70); Epitaphs by Mr. Pope [1-3], 4-14 pp.; The Dunciad [1-2], 3-19, [1], [1]-210, [215]-218 pp. (pp. 154, 155 misnumbered as 160, 161; lacking pp. 211-214).