[Rarebooks] fa: RICHARD VERSTEGAN - A RESTITUTION OF DECAYED INTELLIGENCE IN ANTIQUITIES 1628 - Signed Author's Copy(?)

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, February 28. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/y8vgg643

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Richard Verstegan:] A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence: in Antiquities. Concerning the most noble and renowned English Nation. By the studie and trauell of R.V. Dedicated vnto the Kings most excellent Maiestie. London: Printed by Iohn Bill [and John Norton], Printer to the Kings most Excellent Maiestie, 1628. First English edition. Small 4to (18 cm) in full early/period speckled calf, front and rear covers with blind-tooled fleurettes at the corners; [24], 338, [12] pp.; with engraved vignettes and woodcut decorations. ESTC S116256; STC 21362.

A penciled note by a previous (modern) owner on the front paste-down states that this is "Verstegan's copy - signature pg. 154 & t.p. crossed [out?]." While we can't verify the accuracy of this attribution, there is indeed an inscription in an early hand on p. 154 that reads: "Richard Verstegan / Verstegan ex occulto hac vestigavit" (see photo), and on the title-page next to the printed initials "R.V." there is inscribed what appears to be a signature, rubbed out but for the initial letter "R", followed by a slightly different version of the same motto. Additionally, there are a number of marginal ms. annotations throughout the text, several quite lengthy, in presumably the same early hand (some of them trimmed with loss during a later rebinding).

First English edition, preceded only by an Antwerp edition of 1605. A lively and fascinating compendium of philology, archaeology and folklore, notable for containing the first appearance in English of the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, as well as an early discussion of werewolves, and one of the first published lists of Anglo-Saxon words. The work is dedicated to James I and preceded by 11 pp. of verse tributes to the author, including one by Thomas Shelton, the first translator of Don Quixote. Richard Verstegan (c. 1550-1640) was an Anglo-Dutch convert to Catholicism who was forced to flee England after privately printing an account of the execution of the Jesuit martyr Edmund Campion. He eventually settled in Antwerp, where he became a prolific writer, publisher and engraver, as well as a spy and smuggler of forbidden books. He regularly contributed editorials, verses, jokes, epigrams and satires to the newspaper, Nieuwe Tijdingehn (New Tidings) and is considered one of the earliest identifiable professional journalists in Europe.

Binding with some bumping to the corners, wear to the spine ends; text a bit shaken and tender but holding, with two page-gatherings protruding slightly from the text block; title-page darkened and soiled, with a couple of early owner's inscriptions obscured; contents with mild toning, occasional spots and stains, but generally quite clean and sound; bound without the terminal blank leaf. Front paste-down with the bookplate of Paul H. Humphreys.