The Shepherd's Week. In Six Pastorals [Provenance]
by GAY, John (1685-1732)
- Used
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States
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About This Item
London: Jacob Tonson, 1721. Third Edition. Small, slim 8vo: [16],60,[4]pp, with frontispiece, six full-page copper-engraved plates, woodcut head- and tail pieces. Later polished calf, flat spine (rebacked) lettered in gilt, speckled boards framed with French fillet, gilt turn-ins, all edges gilt, marbled end papers (end papers and fly leaves renewed). An excellent copy, several engravings and a few pages with very light marginal stains, else clean and bright. Provenance: bookplate of the collector Horace Noble Pym (1844-1896) to front paste-down, with his red ink library stamp to front fly-leaf. Foxon G74. Rothschild 922 (calling this the fourth edition). Third edition (originally published 1714). In April 1713, a series of articles in The Guardian launched a debate concerning the nature of pastoral poetry, by praising the verse of Ambrose Philips at the expense of Alexander Pope, who had claimed the mantle of first pastoral writer of his age and the true English Theocritus. Gay's contribution to this literary skirmish, intended to ridicule Philips, was this mock pastoral, a series of six poems modeled on Virgil's Eclogues, which in turn had been influenced by the idylls of Theocritus. The poems are composed in a pseudo-archaic dialect "explained"` in a glossary at the foot of each page. "These glosses are masterpieces of false learning . . . all deliberately chosen to draw attention to the false simplicity of Philips's verses. Yet amid all this Gay inserts some genuinely lyrical moments, before bathetically undermining them, reminding us of the rhythmic beauty of the country, quite separate from the town and its ambitions." (ODNB).
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Details
- Bookseller
- Fine Editions Ltd (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- BB0887
- Title
- The Shepherd's Week. In Six Pastorals [Provenance]
- Author
- GAY, John (1685-1732)
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- Third Edition
- Publisher
- Jacob Tonson
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1721
- Bookseller catalogs
- HAND-PRESS PERIOD;
Terms of Sale
Fine Editions Ltd
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About the Seller
Fine Editions Ltd
Biblio member since 2005
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
About Fine Editions Ltd
Fine Editions specializes in First Editions of English and American Literature, Landmarks In Science and the History Of Ideas, Natural History and Color-Plate books, Travel and Voyages, and books on Gardening and Landscape Design. Our hallmark is condition: with few exceptions (mostly relating to our antiquarian stock), all books sold are in Near Fine or better conditions and all are highly collectible.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Leaves
- Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
- 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....
- Tail
- The heel of the spine.
- Fly-Leaf
- ...
- Calf
- Calf or calf hide is a common form of leather binding. Calf binding is naturally a light brown but there are ways to treat the...
- Bookplate
- Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...
- 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...
- Paste-down
- The paste-down is the portion of the endpaper that is glued to the inner boards of a hardback book. The paste-down forms an...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
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