Beschreibung
Imperial quarto (36.3 x 23.5 overall, the pages 35.2 x 21.8 cm, large paper ). First edition, first issue, before the correction slip "The End" subsequently pasted over the words "The End of the First Volume" at the foot of the last page. (A posthumous second volume of Wycherley's miscellaneous works, initially edited by Alexander Pope, was published in 1728 in octavo format.) Mezzotint frontispiece portrait ("Aetatis Suæ 28") by John Smith (1652-1742) after Sir Peter Lely dated 1703 (CS 284.II, a notably fine impression). Collates [1l. (binder's blank)], 1l. (frontispiece portrait verso), [a]^2 [m]^2 (title, preface with postscript, contents), 1l. (errata recto), A^4-Iii^4, [1l. (binder's blank)]: pp. [i]-xlvi, 1-64, 63-438 (63-64 pagination repeated), plus frontispiece leaf and errata leaf; complete. Contemporary English brown calf covers triple-paneled with gilt rules, rolls and tools, rebacked calf spine in 7 compartments with raised bands, gilt-lettered maroon morocco title-piece in the second, the others gilt-tooled to style, cover edges gilt-rolled, all edges gilt, original binder's pastedowns and rear blank, the front blank renewed. Unobtrusive scrapes, skinning and craculature on covers, some edge and corner wear, paper fillet split in front gutter, minor stains and creasing on frontispiece leaf, title leaf and final leaf, the text block nearly pristine saving a scattered handful of negligible defects, overall a very bright large-paper copy, certainly among the finest extant, complete with the errata leaf. (A bookseller's note, apparently that of the Bernard Quaritch firm, on the rear pastedown postdating the 1951 Litchfield sale includes the encomium "Perfect." Compare the William Foyle copy, Christie's London July 2000, sale 6348, lot 497, realized GBP 4,112.) ESTC T144864; Foxon, W573, p. 907; Grolier Wither to Prior 1085; Hayward 138; Lowndes IV, 3005; Pforzheimer 1101. Provenance: Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax (1661-1715) (engraved armorial bookplate dated 1702 title verso); Thomas Foley, Esq. (? 1695-1749, Stoke Edith, Herefordshire) (signature lower rear pastedown); Edward Hubert Litchfield (1879-1949) (bookplate; Parke-Bernet, New York, Dec. 5, 1951, lot 1016); Walter T. Shirley, Jr. (1932-1962) (according to the Christie's cataloguing, infra); Abel E. Berland (1915-2010) (bookplate; Christie's, New York, Oct. 9, 2001, lot 369); Robert S. Pirie (1934-2015) (bookplate; purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch Ltd). "Wycherley still had a mass of unpublished literary manuscripts of poems, scraps of poems, and the like. In the late 1690s he tried to make some money by printing some of these poems, and the bookseller Samuel Briscoe issued proposals for a subscription volume in 1696. They ended up in a dispute over money, and Wycherley was again arrested for debt. It was not until 1704 that Wycherley's large folio of Miscellany Poems appeared. It was badly misjudged. Poems on a woman's 'Fair Back-Side' and on another's 'Fine Breasts' were entirely at odds with the new, chaster sensibility, and for its preface the work has a thirty-page torrent of abuse on those 'who were my Critics before they were my Readers'. Wycherley's legacy was not only literary but also biographical. Posterity saw him as the type of the wicked, attractive, brilliant Restoration wit, rake, and gallant." -- Oxford DNB. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers ABE-1505932880991
Verkäufer kontaktieren
Diesen Artikel melden
