[Rarebooks] fa: REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JONATHAN SWIFT - Earl of Orrery - 1752

[ArCh]

Auction ends Sunday, November 12. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/2967mnka

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

John Boyle, Earl of Orrery: Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin; in a Series of Letters from John Earl of Orrery to his Son, the Honourable Hamilton Boyle. The second edition, corrected. London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand, MDCCLII [1752]. Small 8vo (18 cm) in early/period polished calf; [2] + 214 + [8] pp.; portrait frontispiece. Teerink 1333; ESTC T80855.

The first attempt at a full biography of Jonathan Swift, written six years after his death. Though a close friend of Swift, Orrery's depiction was not a particularly flattering one. Perhaps because of this, it was a runaway bestseller, in eighteenth-century terms at least, going through five editions in the first year of publication alone. Binding with wear to the edges and bumping to the corners, front joint cracked and tender, but holding; contents with some light toning, a few small spots, several page-corners bumped, else quite clean and fresh.