[Rarebooks] FS: Eighteenth-century Satirical Essays by John Earle

[A.E. Tishman]

Ezra from Aardvark today offers this collection of 18th century satirical sketches.

Anonymous (John Earle). MICRO-COSMOGRAPHY; OR, A PIECE OF THE WORLD CHARACTERIZED; IN ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS. London, England: Salisbury, reprinted and sold by E. Easton. Sold Also by G. and T. Wilkie, St. Paul's Churchyard, 1786. Twelvemo, 6 1/4 in. x 3 3/4 in. Full contemporary calf. Corners slightly bumped, mild rubbing to extremities and hinges. Binding sound. Red Morocco leather spine label ruled and lettered in gilt. 5 gilt bands, triple ruled. pp. xii, 201, [1]. Modern purple ink ownership inscription "Charles A. Cheselrough/New York" to front pastedown. Contemporary ink inscription "NB" to front pastedown and "£62/42" to rear endleaf. Purple ink bled slightly on to titlepage, text unaffected. Three brown spots and fading around fore-edge of titlepage. Pages tanned, moderate spotting and soiling throughout, mostly in margins and towards front and back of book. Uncommon (ESTC T 112960). Trade Terms Available.

Good. Leather-bound. (#85440) $325

The clergyman John Earle (c. 1600-1665) authored Micro-Cosmography in the 1620s, and published the work anonymously in 1628. Micro-Cosmography contains 74 satirical character sketches on archetypal figures such as "A young raw Preacher," "An up-start Country Knight," "A Down-right scholar," and "A mere empty wit." One seething entry reads, for example, "the Common Singing-Men in Cathedral Churches Are a bad society and yet a company of good fellows, that roar deep in the choir, deeper in the tavern. They...are distinguished by their noises much like bells, for they make not a concert but a peal." This genre of character writing, "pithy, ironic pen portraits of social or moral types, often with a didactic moral purpose" began in the 1590s. Micro-Cosmography is Earle's most well-known work and it proved enormously popular with multiple reprints throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. (ODNB) 


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