GESSNER (Salomon):

New Idyls by Gessner. Translated by W. Hooper M D. With A Letter to M: Fuslin on Landscape Painting and the Two Friends of Bourbon. A Moral Tale.

London Printed for S. Hooper..., 1776. Large 8vo (in 4s), 270 x 173 mms., pp. [vi], 129 [130 blank], engraved title-page followed by drop-title leaf, 9 full-page enraved plates, 10 engraved tail-pieces, and 2 engraved head-pieces, with later inscription and date,"William Burton/ October 1807" and a transcription of a letter in French by Fuslin to Gessner and Gessner's response on three pages, bound in contemporary calf and expertly rebackec with new red morocco. A very good copy This first translation of Moralische Erzæhlungen und Idyllen (Zurich, 1756) is easily the best-known work of Salomon Gessner (1730 – 1788), the Swiss artist, poet, government official, etc. The plates are indeed rather splendid. The Monthly Review for 1776 commented, "Perhaps there is no object in poetical criticism that requires a more consummate judgment than to work with certainty the dividing line between what is simple and what is silly. The innumerable errors of this kind, that we have met with confirm the truth of this observation, and it has occurred once or twice on the view of the publication before use." Ah. well: enjoy the illustrations. Martin Bircher, et al., Salomon Gessner: Maler und Dichter der Idylle 1730–1788. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel 1982,

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 10462

Catalogue: Tales

Keywords: tales illustration literature

[MILLS (Andrew Hervey):

Bagatelles. In this collection is reprinted the Fragment: or, Allen and Ella. Which (Unknown to the Author) Appeared some Years since under the Title of Collin and Lucy. , To which is subjoined a Journey to, and Description of, the Paraclete, Near the City of Troyes, in Champagne, where Abelard and Eloisa were buried. All by the Same Hand. The Second Edition.

London: Printed for Messrs. Walkingame, in St. Martin's Lane; Dodsley, Pall-Mall; Robson, Bond-Street; Davis, Piccadilly; Walter, Chairing -cross; Owen, Temple-Bar; Richardson and Urquhart, at the Royal Exchange; and Griffin, in Catharine-Street. 1767. 12mo (in 6s), pp. [iv], vi, ii, 203 [204 -205 blank, 206 "Explanation," 207 blank, 208 "Description," 209 blank], 207 - 226 including half-title, with an engraved frontispiece and engraved plan of the Paraclete, intermittent foxing and staining throughout text, contemporary sheepskin, spine gilt ruled with raised bands and red label, rubbed,corners worn, top of spine chipped, upper joint with short light cracks, but a good copy, with the inscription "Charles Watts Fulham" on the top margin of the title-page. Two of the poems, "Allen and Ella" and "The Lover and the Friend" were reprinted in George Pearch's 1770 edition of A Collection of Poems. Mills's prose account at the end of his visit to the Paraclete to view the uncovered remains [supposedly] of Abelard and Eloisa, a popular romantic story in the 18th Century, with Gothic undertones would be of decided interest to scholars of the Gothic: the frontispiece illustrates the author kneeling to examine the skeletons, with appropriate reverence, whilst torchbearing monks and nuns look on. The plan also details the exact position of the skeletal remains, which were subsequently removed when the Paraclete was destroyed in the French Revolution. During Mills's tour of Europe, he met another young man called Peter Vallete, to whom the book is dedicated; and it also includes a poem at the end dedicated to Valette. ESTC N75 locates copies in Edinburgh University Library and TCD in these islands; and Folger, Rice, Library of Congrees, and Chicago in the United States; the prelims and the unpaginated leaves are revisions of the text.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 10109

Catalogue: Tales

Keywords: tales gothic literature

[WEBBE (Cornelius]:

The Posthumous Papers, Facetious and Fanciful, of a Person Lately about Town.

London: William Sames..., 1828. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 192 X 113 mms., pp. ix [x blank], 304, steel-engraved frontispiece, and five other engraved plate at pages 58, 80, 119, 249, 281, contemp;orary half plum calf, gilt spine, morocco label, paper boards; some off-setting from plates but a good to very good copy. The work was reviewed in one of the earliest, if not the earliest, issues of the journal The Athenaeum, which began with an implied warning: "Neither the title nor the preface to this volume would give the reader a just idea of the grave beauties which are to be found in some portions of its contents. The title is in an affected style of fashion, and the preface is hackneyed and commonplace; but some of the papers are of decided excellence, and one of them of surpassing power, pathos, and beauty - without a rival, we should almost say, in any tale of equal length than we can call to recollection." And then the stinger: "To speak frankly, however, of the work before us, its great defect is its inequality. There are some tales in it quite unworthy of any printed collection...."

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 9559

Catalogue: Tales

Keywords: tales humour literature