An Essay on The Art of Ingeniously Tormenting; with Proper Rules for The Exercise of that Pleasant Art. Humbly addressed; In the First Part, To the Master, Husband, etc. In the Second Part, To the Wife, Friend, etc. With some General Instructions for Plaguing all your Acquaintance.
by Collier, Jane
- Used
- Good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Good
- Seller
-
Kanab, Utah, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; London, 1753 This is the first edition and the only edition published during the lifetime of Jane Collier (1714-1755). Full leather with 5 raised spine bands, 7 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches, 234 pp., engraved frontispiece ("The Cat doth play / And after slay"). Leather worn and rubbed, with erosion at tips and spine ends. Spine label with gilt lettering added sometime later. Binding shaken, with cracked spine, but still held together via the spine cords. Slight browing/foxing, endpapers. Slight browning, frontispiece. Previous owner's name/inscription in neat handwriting, top of title page. Small light brown stain, bottom of title page (7/8 x 1/2 inch, not affecting any printing). A few pencil marks, page 185. Otherwise, pages quite clean and crisp. Binding fair, book block very good. See the Wikipendia entries on Jane Collier and An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting. "Jane Collier's An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753), a conduct book, was her first work. The Essay operates as a satirical advice book on how to nag and it was modeled after Jonathan Swift's satirical essays. The work is intended to "teach" a reader the various methods for "teasing and mortifying" one's acquaintances. It is divided into two sections that are organized for "advice" to specific groups, and it is followed by "General Rules" for all people to follow. / The Essay is modeled on Jonathan Swift's satire, Instructions to Servants (1746), and even mentions Swift directly. However, Collier reverses the roles in Swift's satire and instead writes from a servant's perspective in the first book. / To the master and mistresses, the narrator claims that "you are no true lover of the noble game of Tormenting, if a good dinner, or any other convenience or enjoyment, can give you half the pleasure, as the teasing and mortifying a good industrious servant, who has done her very best to please you." / To wives, she tells them to "Be out of humour when your husband brings company home: be angry, if he goes abroad without you; and troublesome, if he takes you with him." When speaking to friends, she argues that "injuries go nearest to us, that we neither deserve nor expect." Added to the work are "General Rules for plaguing all your acquaintance; with the description of a party of pleasure" along with a "Conclusion" and "A Fable". As a general rule, the narrator says, "By all means avoid an evenness of behaviour. Be, sometimes, extremely glad to see people; and, at other times, let your behaviour be hardly within the rules of good breeding." / Betty Rizzo described the work as the "best-known generic satire written in the eighteenth century by a woman." The Battesins stated that Collier was "an author of wit and spirit". Some critics find it interesting that Collier would "yoke" Richardson with those that he "felt especial antipathy" with: Swift and Fielding. Katherine Craik claims the work as "a courageous social satire published at a time when satires were usually written by and for men.""(3214045). 1st Edition. Hardcover. Good.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Boojum and Snark Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 3186
- Title
- An Essay on The Art of Ingeniously Tormenting; with Proper Rules for The Exercise of that Pleasant Art. Humbly addressed; In the First Part, To the Master, Husband, etc. In the Second Part, To the Wife, Friend, etc. With some General Instructions for Plaguing all your Acquaintance.
- Author
- Collier, Jane
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- Publisher
- Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; London
- Date Published
- 1753
- Keywords
- JONATHAN SWIFT, SARAH FIELDING, SAMUEL RICHARDSON, JAMES HARRIS
- Bookseller catalogs
- History;
Terms of Sale
Boojum and Snark Books
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About the Seller
Boojum and Snark Books
Biblio member since 2003
Kanab, Utah
About Boojum and Snark Books
General antiquarian and out-of-print books. Specializing in medicine, history of medicine, science, technology and technical books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Cracked
- In reference to a hinge or a book's binding, means that the glue which holds the opposing leaves has allowed them to separate,...
- Spine Label
- The paper or leather descriptive tag attached to the spine of the book, most commonly providing the title and author of the...
- Shaken
- A hardcover in which the text block is loose, but still attached to the binding.
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Fair
- is a worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc....
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Title Page
- A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
- Crisp
- A term often used to indicate a book's new-like condition. Indicates that the hinges are not loosened. A book described as crisp...