[Rarebooks] fa: CHRYSAL, or THE ADVENTURES OF A GUINEA - Charles Johnstone - 1761

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 25. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/y6juu7vd

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Charles Johnstone:] Chrysal: or, The Adventures of a Guinea. Wherein are exhibited Views of several striking Scenes, with curious and interesting Anecdotes of the most Noted Persons in every Rank of Life, whose Hands it passed through, in America, England, Holland, Germany and Portugal. By an Adept. The Second Edition greatly inlarged and corrected. London: Printed for T. Becket, at Tully's Head, near Surry-Street, in the Strand, MDCCLXI [1761]. Two volumes, tall 12mo (17 cm), in early/period calf-backed marbled boards, spines richly tooled in gilt, red morocco spine labels; xxxv, [1], 264 pp.; [14], 300 pp.; ESTC T57342.

The second, much expanded edition of this popular and often reprinted satirical novel recounting the travels and adventures of a gold coin as it passes between various owners, "a masterly but caustic satire" (Lowndes). Little is known of its author, Charles Johnstone, except that he was Irish, that he trained as a lawyer but was too deaf to practice, and that he emigrated to India, where he wrote and edited for various Bengal publications before dying, in Calcutta, sometime around 1800.

Binding with rubbing to the boards, bumping and wear to the extremities, part of one spine label worn away; contents mildly toned with occasional light spotting, but generally quite clean and sound, firmly bound. Front paste-down with the bookplate of Robert J. Hayhurst, a noted collector of eighteenth-century literature in contemporary bindings.