Author: [LAWRENCE (Herbert)]:
Title: The Passions Personify'd in Familiar Fables.
Description: London: Printed for J. Whiston...and M. Lawrence... [no date], [1773] FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Tall 8vo (in 4s), pp. [ii], iv [v Contents, vi "Explanation of the Frontispiece," vii recto plate on viii], 104, with engraved frontispiece and 12 engraved plates (not included in numeration], contemporary calf, rebacked, with title in gilt on spine; text a bit fingered and binding worn and shabby, but a decent copy with the amusing bookplate of John T. Beer on the front paste-down end-paper. "John T. Beer was a successful Merseyside clothier and an avid book collector, who turned to fore-edge painting after his retirement and produced hundreds of works between 1884 and 1900. As he was not a professional painter working on commission, Beer was able to select books from his own collection, including several incunabula, and decorate them to his own taste" (scolarcardiff.wordpress.com). This copy, alas, does not have a fore-edge painting. The Monthly Review for May, 1773, began rather sniffily, "We were rather prepossessed against these fables, by the Author's preface; which, not having the merit of satire, has many of the effects of a disagreeable and offensive pertness: and we concluced the Writer to be, if not an immoral, at least an impractical member of the community. We were agreeably disappointed upon reading the fables; and, though they have many faulty lines and passages, we can recommend them to the Reader, as having some poetical merit, and being perfectly moral and practical" (The words in italics are quoted from the author's preface.) The work was often attributed to Edward Young.

Keywords: fables illustration literature


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