ADDISON (Mr.):

Interesting Anecdotes, Memoirs, Allegories, Essays and Poetical Fragments, tening to Amuse the Fancy, and Inculcate Morality.

London: Printed for the Author, 1797. 13 volumes of 16. 8vo (in 4s), 2150 x 120 mms., uniformly bound in contemporary half calf, marbled boards (worn), red morocco titling labels, small circular black numbering labels (but several missing), a bit of general wear, but in reasonably good condition, with all covers firmly attached, and the armorial bookplate of Viscount Hood on the front paste-down end-paper of each volume. Hood is almost certainly the famous naval commander Admiral Samuel Hood, 1st Baron Hood (1724 - 1816), whose peerage was created in 1776. Over the decades I have had quite a few odd volumes of this irritating (no one has yet discovered who "Mr. Addison" was, or even if the name covered a multitude of authors) pass through my hands, but this is the closest I've yet come to a complete set of 16 volumes. It's a very useful resource for literary scholars; for example, Arthur Pike Conant, in his The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century (2013) remarks that the set "contains a great variety of oriental and unoriental tales taken, usually without naming the author, from the Rambler, the Adventurer, and other sources."

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 9311

Catalogue: Anecdotes

Keywords: anecdotes essays prose

JOHNSON (Samuel). PIOZZI (Hester Lynch):

Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. During the last Twenty Years of His Life. The Second Edition.

London: Printed for T. Cadell..., 1786. 8vo, 184 x 109 mms., pp. [v] - viii, 306 [307 Postscript, 308 mounted Errata slip], including half-title, contemporary half straight-grain morocco, yellow boards, floral ornaments in blind on spine, title in gilt; covers a bit soiled, front joint and corners slightly worn but a good copy The reviewer in The Critical Review for 1786 remarked, "Anecdotes of this kind bring us nearer to the object, and dispel the magic cloud which disguised it. The admirers of the Colossus, who gazed at a distance, may shudder at this unhallowed invasion of the shrine of their deity; but they need not be apprehensive: Dr. Johnson will retain, after every allowance has been made, enough to satisfy his rational friends.... To her [Mrs. Piozzi], therefore, the office of preserving his sentiments must peculiarly belong; especially if we add her care in observing, that she possessed the abilities tp distinguish the propriety and justness of his remarks."

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 8768

Catalogue: Anecdotes

Keywords: anecdotes biography literature