Bibliographic Notes on One Hundred Books Famous in English LiteratureKent, Henry Watson
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Bibliographic Notes on One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature
Kent, Henry Watson
Best books; English literature -- First editions -- Bibliography; English literature -- History and criticism
The portrait of Bunyan engraved by Robert White makes our copy
unique. It shows the author lying asleep over a lion's den,
while above him Christian is represented on his journey. Until
1886, when this volume was brought to light, the third edition
was supposed to be the first to have a picture of the author;
but now it seems quite certain that other volumes of the first
edition may, like this, have had the print. In the edition
of 1679, the label of the city from which the Pilgrim
was journeying, called "Vanity" here, was changed to
"Destruction."
The price paid for this volume, when it was sold at auction in
1901, was fourteen hundred and seventy-five pounds.
The second part of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ appeared in 1684.
It depends more upon reflected than intrinsic merit; but
copies of the first edition are even rarer than those of the
first edition of the first part.
Octavo.
COLLATION: _A-Q3, in eights. Portrait._
JOHN DRYDEN
(1631-1700)
35. Absalom | And | Achitophel. | A | Poem. | ... Si Propiùs ſtes |
Te Capiet Magis.... | London, | Printed for J. T. and are to be Sold
by W. Davis in | Amen-Corner, 1681.
The Earl of Shaftesbury, here typified as Achitophel for his
share in the conspiracy to place the young Duke of Monmouth,
Absalom, on the throne, was committed to the Tower in July,
1681; and this satire appeared in November, just before the
Grand Jury acquitted him. Notwithstanding the lateness of the
work, its success was unprecedented. We are told that Samuel
Johnson's father, a bookseller of Litchfield, said that he
could not remember a sale of equal rapidity, except that of
the reports of the Sacheverell trial.
The author's name does not appear in the book; nor yet in the
second edition, to which Tonson added two unsigned poems "To
the unknown author."
Jacob Tonson, the publisher of the work, was one of the
notable figures in the annals of book-publishing in England,
and his name is inseparably connected with some of the most
important literary ventures of the period: with those of
Milton, Addison, Steele, Congreve, but above all with those of
Dryden. Basil Kennett wrote in 1696: "Twill be as impossible
to think of Virgil without Mr. Dryden, as of either without
Mr. Tonson." He was so poor when he began business that he
is said to have borrowed the twenty pounds necessary to the
purchase of the first play of Dryden's that he published; but,
thanks to his shrewdness, and to the success of his ventures,
he died in affluent circumstances, having fully earned the
title of "prince of booksellers." He was the founder of the
famous Kit-Cat Club, and in spite of Dryden's ill-tempered
lines,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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