A History Of The County Of Down. From The Most Remote Period To The Present Day: Including An Account Of Its Early Colonization, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military Polity, Geography, Topography and Antiquities And Natural History - Rare Book Insider
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A History Of The County Of Down. From The Most Remote Period To The Present Day: Including An Account Of Its Early Colonization, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military Polity, Geography, Topography and Antiquities And Natural History

Original brick red cloth decorated in black to the front panel and lettered in gilt to the spine. This very large book remains solid. There is some scuffing to the external hinges. [viii], 724 pp. "Illustrated by woodcuts, and a coloured geographical and geological map, based on the research of the Ordinance and Geological Surveys." With the armorial book-plate of John Godfrey Echlin affixed to the front paste-down. Echlin comes from a long family line dating back to at least the early 17th century. The large fold-out map is present and bound-in at the rear of the book. A very nice copy and quite valuable as a research tool. Very good.
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Bartholmew Fayre

Folio, [10],1-11, [12, 13 mis-numbered as 6,3], 14-30, [31 mis-numbered as 13], 32-88 pp. Top edge trimmed with no loss. Also, and not to be forgiven, Jonson is spelled "Johnson" on the title page. A rather imfamous publication as Jonson was trying to add three additional plays, Bartholomew Fair, The Devil Is An Ass, and The Staple of News, to the already published "Workes" (1616). These plays were to be issued by I.B. (John Beale) for Robert Allot. When Jonson saw the printed publications he was appalled at the poor quality and execution by Beale and aborted the project. The plays finally appeared in the 1640 Collected Works. The plays were never sold, or at least there is no record of such, but were probably distributed. The copy offered here has been re-bound in the 20th century in 1/4 leather with marbled boards. The leather spine is without text. On the front paste-down is the book-plate of George Speight. George Victor Speight (1914-2005), was a theatre historian, author, performer, bibliophile, and an authority on puppets, puppetry and mechanical toy theatre. In this original text, "Puppets" are listed in "The Persons Of The Play." From the Induction scene Jonson writes (I will use the text here as written) "Hee is loth to make Nature afraid in like Drolleries, to mixe his head with other mens heeles, let the concupisence of jigges and Dances, raigne strong as it will amongst you : yet if the Puppets will please any body, they shall be entreated to come in." Act V, scenes 1 - 3 are concerned with the puppet show - those looking forward to it and those opposed. In any case, we can see why Mr. Speight was intrigued with this title and wanted it added to his collection. "Bartholmew Fayre" is an important play, commonly regarded as among Jonson's best and, because of the tortured publishing history, extremely scarce in this edition. This is a clean bright and solid copy. Besides the pagination errors and the trimming along the top edge, there are only minor problems; two small holes (pp. 11 and 38), likely caused by glowing embers from a pipe. OCLC lists 11 copies. Pforzheimer - 560. STC - 14755 (14754*). Near Fine.