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[GODWIN ( Wm. )]. The History of the life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Dublin : Printed for Mes

Currency:EUR Category:Antiques / Books & Manuscripts Start Price:10.00 EUR Estimated At:150.00 - 180.00 EUR
[GODWIN ( Wm. )]. The History of the life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Dublin : Printed for Mes

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Auction Date:2012 Oct 20 @ 11:00 (UTC+1)
Location:38 Molesworth Street, Dublin, Dublin, ., Ireland
[GODWIN ( Wm. )]. The History of the life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Dublin : Printed for Messrs. Potts, Wilson, Walker, and Byrne, 1783FIRST 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)ENGLISH PRE 1801; DUBLIN PRINTED; HISTORY; ENGLAND; BIOGRAPHY; VERSE; ENGLISH LITERATURE; ; ; ; ;