[Rarebooks] fa: SAMUEL RICHARDSON - CLARISSA 1784 - First ed. w/ THOMAS STOTHARD ILLUSTRATIONS

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 10. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/yxksmqxl

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Samuel Richardson: Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady. London: Printed for Harrison and Co., 1784. First edition thus. Eight volumes bound in two volumes, thick 8vo (21 cm), in early/period calf-backed marbled boards; 612, [613]-1308 pp.; extra engraved title-page in each volume, plus 34 engraved plates after Thomas Stothard (complete). Coxhead pp. 70-72.

The complete text of Clarissa as it appeared in vols. XIV and XV of The Novelist's Magazine, the first edition of Richardson's novel with illustrations by Stothard, generally considered among his best. Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) was one of the foremost British artists and engravers of his time, and particularly noted for his book illustrations. In 1780, he became a regular contributor to the Novelist's Magazine, for which he produced 148 designs overall. "We come now to the most famous of all the Novelist illustrations,—perhaps to the most famous of all Stothard's work for books... The connoisseur never thinks of Stothard without thinking of 'Clarissa.' Indeed, there are many to whom the book would be but a name, had they not been led to study it by the thirty-four matchless illustrations which interpret it" (A.C. Coxhead, Thomas Stothard, R.A.: An Illustrated Monograph, 1906).

Bindings worn and rough, spines chipped with loss to the leather, one board detached, the other joints cracked with the boards held by the cords; contents with intermittent, generally mild toning and offsetting, occasional spots and small stains, a few leaves bumped at the corners, the original owner's binding directions written in the margins of many of the plates and the text leaves opposite.