[Rarebooks] fa: SOME PARTICULARS of the LIFE of the Late GEORGE COLMAN, ESQ. - 1795

[ArCh]

Listed now, auctions ending Sunday, March 31. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y44v3eru

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

[George Colman the Elder:] Some Particulars of the Life of the late George Colman, Esq. Written by himself, and delivered by him to Richard Jackson, Esq. (one of his Executors,) for publication after his decease. London: Printed for T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, (successors to Mr. Cadell) in the Strand, MDCCXCV [1795]. First edition. Slim 8vo (21 cm) in modern calf-backed boards; [2], 33, [1] pp.; bound without the half-title page, but with an engraved frontispiece portrait. ESTC T49331; Arnott & Robinson 2629.

Light toning and spotting to the portrait and title-piece, otherwise very clean and bright in a fine and fresh modern calf-backed binding. A posthumously published pamphlet dealing with Colman’s relationships with the Pulteney family. In it, he denies the rumor that Lord Bath, married to his mother’s sister, was actually his father. George Colman (1732-1794), called "the Elder" to distinguish him from his son of the same name, was a prolific playwright, usually of comedies, as well as a producer, the manager of both the Covent Garden and Haymarket theatres, and a respected translator of Terence and Horace. "That he was a considerable figure in the literary and theatrical world of the later eighteenth century is not to be doubted; that he was overestimated in his own time is certainly to be suspected. One of his admirers, Lord Byron, wrote in his memoirs, 'Let me begin the evening with Sheridan and finish it with Colman' — an order that might better be reversed" (Kunitz and Haycraft).