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848
.
GODWIN (Wm.).
Of Population. An enquiry concerning
the power of increase in the numbers of mankind, being an
answer to Mr. Malthus’s Essay on that subject.
Printed for
Longman, Hurst …,
1820
FIRST EDITION, pages 22, 626, 8vo, pleasantly bound in
recent quarter calf, with label, gilt: a very good, entirely uncut,
copy.
The final full statement of Godwin’s position in his debate with
Malthus on the theory of population. It includes chapters on South
America, Africa, Paraquay and Rome, and a section on North America
containing chapters on the history of emigration from Europe, the
history of population in the United States, observations on the countries
in the neighbourhood of the Missouri, diseases in the United States, etc.
€600-€800 (£480-£640 approx.)
849
.
GODWIN (Wm.).
Recherches sur la Population, et sur la
faculté d’accroissement de l’espèce humaine; contenant une
réfutation des doctrines de M. Malthus sur cette matiére …
Traduit de l’anglais, par F. -S. Constancio, D. M. etc.
Paris, J. -P.
Aillaud,
1821
FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH, pages (4), xiv, 416: (4), 473,
with the half-titles,2 vols, 8vo, finely bound in recent half
morocco, attractive gilt spines, silk markers, the fore and lower
edges uncut and with a few leaves in the second volume
unopened: a fine, uncut copy, handsomely bound.
The speed with which Godwin’s book was translated into French
indicates a lively French interest in the Malthus-Godwin debate, which
was to continue throughout the nineteenth century.
(2)
€400-€500 (£320-£400 approx.)
850
.
[GODWIN (Wm.)].
The History of the life of William
Pitt, Earl of Chatham.
Dublin: Printed for Messrs. Potts, Wilson,
Walker, and Byrne,
1783
FIRST IRISH EDITION, pages (5), viii - xvii, (1, blank),257, (3,
blank), preliminary leaves mis-paginated, but complete, 12mo,
contemporary calf, gilt ruled spine, with label, gilt: the binding
worn and rubbed but sound and strong, with some browning
and staining, but a good, sound copy, with armorial bookplate
of William King Atkinson, Justice of New Hampshire state
supreme court, 1803-05, with book number ‘42’ entered in
manuscript.
First Irish edition of Godwin’s first book: the London edition was
published for the author during the same year. Godwin had just had a
crisis in his career as a clergyman in Suffolk, first failing to be ordained,
and finally being dismissed from his congregation. He returned to
London and began to write a planned series of political biographies, of
which this was the first. It was finished in November 1782, a paean to
Pitt’s whig virtues as seen by Godwin, and with a large part of the
biography devoted to the last years of Pitt’s political career and his
attempts to reconcile the government with the rebellious American
colonies. This Dublin edition is considerably scarcer than the London:
ESTC records the same pagination as this copy, and locates only five
copies in North America..
ALSO WITH THIS LOT:
DILLON (Wentworth), fourth Earl
of Roscommon.
Poems by the Earl of Roscommon. To which is
added, An Essay on Poetry, by the Earl of Musgrave, now Duke
of Buckingham … with Poems by Mr. Richard Duke.
Printed for
J. Tonson,
1717. FIRST EDITION THUS, pages (20),536, 8vo,
later half calf, gilt ruled spine, with label, gilt: leaf L2 touched at
fore-edge touching text on verso but with the loss of only one
letter, otherwise a very good copy with the contemporary
signature of ‘Ri: Abercrombie’.
Grolier 274. Macdonald, Dryden, 326. Includes the first printing of
Duke’s ‘The Review’, commendatory verses by Amherst, Chetwood and
Dryden, Roscommon’s ‘Essay on Translated verse’ in Latin and
English in parallel, ‘Poems on Several Occasions’ and ‘Horace’s Art of
Poetry’, Dryden’s translation of Virgil’s Sixth Eclogue; Sheffield’s
‘Essay on Poetry’, Duke’s ‘Poems on Several Occasions’, etc. Praised by
Pope as the only moral writer of the age of Charles II and by Johnson
as ‘a benefactor to English literature’, Roscommon was the first critic
who publicly praised Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’.
(2)
€150-€180 (£120-£144 approx.)
851. [GOLDSMITH (Oliver)] An history of the lives, actions,
travels, sufferings, and deaths of the most eminent martyrs,
and primitive fathers of the church, in the first four centuries;
viz. Stephen the proto-martyr... Extracted from the Holy
Scriptures, and the best ecclesiastical historians. Adorned
with variety of copper-plate cuts.
Printed for J. Newbery,
1764
FIRST EDITION, with 8 engraved plates, pages (4), 128,
121(bis) - 228, complete thus in spite of pagination jump,
32mo, original pictorial printed paper pale yellow boards:
lacking about half of the unlettered backstrip and the upper
board almost off, but still a remarkably fresh copy in a fitted
folding case: a rare survival in original state.
Roscoe J 148 (1). ESTC locates copies at Bodleian, St Brides,
Pierpont Morgan and Beinecke (the latter noting 7 plates only).
Stuart Bennet, in his Trade Bookbinding in the British Isles,
illustrates on page 92, the same printed boards but used by Carnan
in 1783 on an edition of “The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes”.
As Roscoe implies, there was only one printing of “An history of the
lives and actions…” and the work continued to be advertised and
sold for years, with sheets finding their way into this present
attractive 18C binding of pictorial printed paper boards of, one must
assume, the early 1780s. Nonetheless, the book is remarkably
uncommon and must be accounted a notable rarity in the Goldsmith
canon, particularly so in such fresh original state as here. It is based
on the Apostolici and the Ecclesiastici of William Cave and is not a
translation, as intimated in Newbery’s contemporary
advertisements.
(2)
€6,000-€8,000 (£4,800-£6,400 approx.)
852
.
GOLDSMITH (Oliver).
Poems and Plays. To which is
prefixed, the life of the author. A new edition, corrected.
Dublin:
Printed for Messrs. Price, Sleater, W. Watson … (and 22 others),
1785
Pages (4), x,274, (3), (1, blank), 12mo, contemporary calf, gilt
ruled spine, possibly wanting a label: binding a little rubbed at
corners but very strong and otherwise a very good copy.
ESTC locates eight copies of this edition: L, C, O, Du / CaOHM,
TxHR, DLC, CtY. An edition not found on-line in D or Dt. The last 4-
pages contain two epilogues to ’She stoops to conquer’: one by
Goldsmith, the other by J. Craddock.
ALSO WITH THIS LOT: (1)
LUCIAN, of Samosata.
Lucian’s
Dialogues, selected by Dugard, and Leeds. Translated by
Dryden, and several eminent hands.
Dublin: Printed for W. Smith,
H. Bradley, and T. Ewing,
1772. Pages (4),283, (1, blank), 12mo,
contemporary calf, with label, gilt and the initials “E R” in gilt
on spine: a very good copy
An uncommon edition of these satirical dialogues.
(2)
HOMER: - ALLACCI or ALLATTII (Leone).
De Patria
Homeri. (Andrea Baiano interprete).
Lugduni, sumptibus
Laurentii Durand.
1640. FIRST EDITION, partly in Greek and
Latin, with engraved vignette title-page and one small text
engraving, pages 31,24-31, (1, blank),295, (1, blank); (2), 71, (5
errata), small 8vo, contemporary calf, gilt spine: the binding
heaviily worn but strong: a very good copy.
Allatius (1586-1669), Vatican librarian, was trained as a physician. In
1645 he included the first methodical discussion of vampires, in De
Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus (“On certain modern
opinions among the Greeks”). In his later years he collected Greek and
Syrian manuscripts to add to the late Pope Gregory XV’s Eastern
Library at the Vatican.
202