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John Price Antiquarian Books

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The Complete Angler: 0r, Contemplative Man’s Recreation. Being a Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish, and Fishing. In Two Parts. The First written by Mr. Isaac Walton, The Second by Charles Cotton, Esq ; Illustrated with upwards of Thirty Copper-Plate Cuts of the several Kinds of River-Fish, of the Implements used in Angling, and Views of the principal Scenes described in the Book. To which are prefixed, The Lives of the Authors. And notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. By Sir John Hawkins, Knt. The Third Edition.

Large 8vo, 182 x 113 mms., pp. lxxvii, 303 [304 note], xlvii, 128 [129 -136], engraved frontispiece (looking suspiciously like a facsimile), 15 other engraved plates, two engraved plates of music, 17 engraved vignettes of fish in texts, various woodcuts and woodcut ornaments, finely bound in 20th century full polished calf, spine ornately gilt in compartments, green morocco label. A very good to almost fine copy, with the bookplate of B. J. Findlay on the front paste-down end-paper and notes in his hand on the recto of the first two front free end-papers; and the autograph "Johannes Anderson" on the recto of the leaf before the frontispiece. The vast literature on this book is daunting, and it is said to be the most frequently reprinted book in the English language after the Bible. Hawkins first published this work in 1760, with annotations. N Coigney, R. L. Izaak Walton, a new bibliography, 1653-1987,; 12; Horne, B.S. Compleat angler, 1653-1967,; 12; Oliver, Peter. A new chronicle of The Complete Angler; 12
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A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Essay on Old Maids. By a Friend to the Sisterhood.

FIRST EDITION. 3 volumes. 8vo, 178 x 110 mms. pp. [iii] - xix [xx blank], 261 [262 blank]; [ii], 250; [ii], 255 [256 blank], attractively bound in full contemporary calf, ornate gilt borders on covers, neatly rebaccked with spine richly and ornately gilt in compartments, black leather labels laid down, marbled edges and end-papers; lacks half-titles, some very slight flaws to binding but a very good to near fine set. John Johnson, the editor of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley (1823), records that "Never was a book projected and written with more guileless or more benevolent intentions, yet a host of prudes and hypocrites railed against it, as immoral and irreligious. Conscious of his pure intentions in composing the essay, he only smiled at the mistake of those rigid ladies who reviled the production as indecent and irreligious; and he exulted in the warm applause of several most accomplished and candid members of the sisterhood, who regarded and extolled it as an elegant and moral performance, that truly deserved, not the censure, but the thanks and the esteem of their society." In their article on William Hayley (1745-1820), the Oxford DNB notes that among his anonymously published works was his "Essay on Old Maids (3 vols., 1785) -- which, although deemed 'indelicate' (Bishop, 90) and affronting many, sold well". The DNB is silent on the connection between William Hayley and the dedicatee of this three-volume treatise: the pioneering woman poet and classical scholar Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), who, unmarried and, at this time, 68 years of age, was herself in the category under discussion.
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Silk-Worms: A Poem in Two Books. Written originally in Latin, by Marc. Hier. Vida, Bishop of Alba. And now translated into English. With a preface, giving an account of the life and writings of Vida.

FIRST EDITION OF THIS TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH. 8vo, 183 x 116 mms., [xii], 43 [44 blankl], bound in later vellum-backed boards, leather label, a very good copy. This 1723 edition of the poem Silk-Worms by Marco Girolomo Vida is not only the first edition of this translation into English; it is also the first edition of the first translation of this seminal Italian poem into the English language. The author of the translation is not given on the title-page, nor is it given in the ESTC entry on this printing, but he is John Rooke. That the translator is indeed John Rooke can be pieced together from a later book: Select Translations by "Mr. Rooke", whose main title-page is dated to 1726 (ESTC N21772), but the translation of Vida's Silk-Worms contained therein has a separate title-page dated 1725. The title of the 1723 volume on offer begins "Silk-Worms: A Poem.A Poem. In Two Books " and the title on the separate 1725 title-page begins similarly (with the only differences being the addition of a definite article and a period replacing the colon):"The Silk-Worms. A Poem. In Two Books ". The 1725 translation has a dedication, addressed to the eminent physician and natural philosopher Richard Mead, which is signed "John Rooke". The body of the 1725 version of the poem, too, is plainly the same work as that included in the 1723 volume, but it is equally plain to see that Rooke revised the opening of the piece sometime between 1723 and 1725. In 1723, Rooke's translation began, What curious Webs the well-fed Worms enclose, How from their Mouths the glossy Matter flows; What wondrous Arts adorn the reptile Race, Their Laws, their Labours, and their Lives to trace In 1725, Rooke altered the lines to include more complex rhythms, and more decorative diction: What well-wrought Webs the Reptile Race infold, How their rich Mouths emit the Silken Gold; How the sleek Worm her curious Toils contrives, Their Births, their Laws, their Labours, and their Lives The 1723 first edition on offer is ESTC T101574, which is Foxon S462. The ESTC locates no copies in Ivy League libraries of this first edition. According to ESTC, the only copies in North America are at the Huntington, McGill, St. Louis University, UCLA, University of California at Riverside, University of Illinois, and University of Minnesota. The ESTC also locates four holding libraries in the British Isles: the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, Oxford (which has two copies), and Leeds. No copies located on other continents. This is a somewhat rare book whose authorship has been overlooked.
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Poems upon Several Occasions.

FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 188 x 122 mms., pp. 15 [16 blank, 17 - 20 Contents], 282, including list of subscribers. AND: LEAPOR: Poems upon Several Occasions. By the late Mrs. Leapor, of Brackley in Northamptonshire. The Second and Last Volume. London, Printed: and Sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick-Lane, 1751. FIRST EDITION. 8vo,188 x 122 mms., pp. xxxv [xxxvi blank], 324, including second list of subscribers. 2 volumes, uniformly bound in later, probably early 19th century half-calf, gilt rules and black leather labels on spines, marbled boards (rubbed); some spotting with some leaves foxed, lower margin of volume 2 closely trimmed by binder adversely affecting some catchwords and signature marks, bindings a little rubbed, but a good set. The acclaimed working-class poet Mary Leapor (1722-1746) served as a kitchen maid at Weston Hall, a few miles from where she was born in Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire, near the market town of Brackley; her parents discouraged her early attempts at writing poetry. Later she worked at Edgcote House but was dismissed from the post when she was 23. She died before any of her poems were printed. David Garrick is said to have written "Proposals for printing by subscription the poetical works, serious and humorous, of Mrs. Leapor," but his name does not appear among the 600 plus subscribers. The second volume was edited by Isaac Hawkins Browne and printed by Samuel Richardson. In Janet Todd's Dictionary of British and American Women Writers (1987), the literary historian Betty Rizzo writes that Mary Leapor's "history and writings attracted wide attention, and her pieces were much re-published, particularly in Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755); she was honoured by inclusion in Duncombe's Feminead (1754)" (pp. 192-3). Rizzo also reminds us that the great poet William Cowper in 1791 judged Leapor to be one of the two best "natural" poets he had encountered in his life. In the Oxford DNB, Stuart Gillespie concludes that "Leapor's verse, largely in the style of Pope, achieves a considerable range of feeling and forcefully displays an individual voice. After renewed interest in her work she is counted one of the leading women poets of her century." The provenance is apropos, as the "W. Dash" of the printed book-label is very likely the bookseller William Dash (b. 1799, d. circa 1883), who, with his father, the bookseller Thomas Dash, of Market-Place, Kettering, Northamptonshire, were major collectors and patrons of Northamptonshire history, and philanthropists of the region. Leapor is of course not only notable as an early woman poet but also as an early Northamptonshire celebrity, despite that celebrity arising largely after her death, as her poetry attained wide circulation. Thomas Dash included Mary Leapor's poetry in book catalogues he issued at Kettering in 1820 and 1824, the Leapor items being priced at two shillings each time. Thomas passed the business on to his son William in the early nineteenth century. Much later, in 1883, Puttick and Simpson auctioned the "Private Library" of the late William Dash of Kettering, in which sale this pair of volumes likely appeared, but I cannot be certain of this as I have not found a single extant copy of the 1883 catalogue. Noting the inclusion of numerous Northamptonshire books, the Dash sale and its catalogue were advertised in The Athenaeum (No. 2924, November 10, 1883, p. 586). The two volumes on offer are ESTC T127827 and ESTC T136743. These were the only two volumes of Leapor's work printed in the eighteenth century. They also formed the core textual matter used by Richard Greene and Ann Messenger, editors of The Works of Mary Leapor, published in 2003 by Oxford University Press. The acclaimed working-class poet Mary Leapor (1722-1746) served as a kitchen maid at Weston Hall, a few miles from where she was born in Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire, near the market town of Brackley; her parents discouraged her early attempts at writing poetry. Later she worked at Edgcote House but was dismissed from the post when she was 23. She died before any of her poems were printed. David Garrick is said to have written "Proposals for printing by subscription the poetical works, serious and humorous, of Mrs. Leapor," but his name does not appear among the 600 plus subscribers. The second volume was edited by Isaac Hawkins Browne and printed by Samuel Richardson. In Janet Todd's Dictionary of British and American Women Writers (1987), the literary historian Betty Rizzo writes that Mary Leapor's "history and writings attracted wide attention, and her pieces were much re-published, particularly in Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755); she was honoured by inclusion in Duncombe's Feminead (1754)" (pp. 192-3). Rizzo also reminds us that the great poet William Cowper in 1791 judged Leapor to be one of the two best "natural" poets he had encountered in his life. In the Oxford DNB, Stuart Gillespie concludes that "Leapor's verse, largely in the style of Pope, achieves a considerable range of feeling and forcefully displays an individual voice. After renewed interest in her work she is counted one of the leading women poets of her century." The two volumes on offer are ESTC T127827 and ESTC T136743. These were the only two volumes of Leapor's work printed in the eighteenth century. They also formed the core textual matter used by Richard Greene and Ann Messenger, editors of The Works of Mary Leapor, published in 2003 by Oxford University Press.
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Letters concerning Poetical Translations, and Virgil’s and Milton’s arts of verse, &c.

8vo, 207 x 122 mms., pp. [ii], 83 [84 blank], bound in contemporary calf, lacks label, binding rubbed and dried, front joint cracked (but firm), rear joint slightly cracked, corners worn; a fair to good copy, with the (very scarce) armorial bookplate of "Sir Henry Fitz Herbert, Bart." on the front paste-down end-paper, which, it must be said, is notably hyper-masculine in its motifs, three lions in full length on the escutcheon, and the crest a brandished fist (Franks 10677). This is the second and final lifetime edition of William Benson's treatise on Milton and Virgil, as well as on poetry more generally, with special attention to formal elements of poetic literature. In 1970, Garland published a facsimile edition. In 1973, Timothy Webb brought out another facsimile edition with Scolar Press, adding his scholarly introduction. Both of the two eighteenth-century editions, 1738 and 1739, are very rare in commerce. Both Scolar Press and Garland Publishing favour the 1739 text of Benson's book, taking this 1739 edition as their copy-text. Known as "Auditor Benson" in his day, William Benson (1682-1754) was an architect, politician, hydraulic engineer, patron of the arts, and literary critic. Benson was famously, if briefly, the successor of the brilliant Christopher Wren. "Favoured by the king, Benson superseded the octogenarian Christopher Wren as surveyor of the king's works on 26 April 1718" (Oxford DNB). Minister of Parliament for the town of Shaftesbury earlier in the century, Benson lost a bid in 1727 to regain his seat, and then "cut off the town's water supply", whose supply he had ensured in 1715 by "engineering a piped water supply" to the town of Shaftesbury "from one of his estates" (Oxford DNB). The influence Benson had in Miltonic matters went far beyond his own critical writing on the bard, as Benson was a moving force in the creation of the monument to Milton for the Westminster Abbey, and was the munificent financier of Dobson's Latin translation of Milton's Paradise Lost. As the Oxford DNB puts it, "Benson's Letters Concerning Poetical Translations (1739) praises Virgil at the expense of Homer and contains good close criticism of Milton's versification. His monument to Milton in Westminster Abbey (1737), with a self-regarding inscription, aroused the ridicule of Pope and Johnson. His commissioning William Dobson to translate Paradise Lost into Latin for a fee of £1000 abrogated Dobson's plan to do the same for Pope's Essay on Man." ESTC T37762. Despite the high Miltonic content to the book, it is notably absent from the Milton collection at the Library of University of South Carolina, which holds only the Garland facsimile. The Virgilian content is also high, but the Virgil collection at UPenn holds no physical copy of any edition.
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The Triumphs of Temper. A Poem. In Six Cantos. The Twelfth Edition, Corrected. With New Original Designs, By Maria Flaxman.

Small 8vo, 161 x 94 mms., pp. [iii] - xii, 165 [166 blank], with six designs by Maria Flaxman engraved by William Blake, bound in contemporary sheepskin, gilt border on covers, gilt spine, red leather label; spine rubbed with loss of gilt, but a good copy.Blake worked on these plates for the first six months of 1803. In his letter to Thomas Butts of 10 January 1803, Blake reports that he was "now engaged in Engraving 6 small plates for a New Edition of Mr Hayleys Triumphs of Temper. from drawings by Maria Flaxman sister to my friend the Sculptor" (Erdman page 723). At the end of the month, on 30 January, Blake informs his brother James of the commission and state that he would be paid "10 G[uineas]" for each plate (Erdman page 726). By the end of June, the engravings were evidently complete, for Hayley sent a copy of the twelfth edition to Lady Harriet Hesketh, William Cowper's cousin. In a letter of 1 July, she tells Hayley of her disappointment with the prints. In a letter to John Flaxman of 7 August 1803, Hayley, presumably referring to Hesketh's comments, states: "I am sorry to say that the Ladies (& it is a Ladys Book) find fault with the Engravings— our poor industrious Blake has received sixty Guineas for them from my Bookseller & I believe both the artist & the paymaster are dissatisfied on the occasion" (Bentley, Records page 157). In the same letter, Hayley also reports that he and Blake made the decision to omit from the engravings the figure of Minerva represented in one of Maria Flaxman's original designs. In response, John Flaxman remarked in a letter to Hayley of 24 August 1803 that one of his half-sister's drawings depicting "Serena viewing herself in the Glass when dressed for the Masquerade whilst her Maid adjusts her train" was overlooked for engraving (Bentley, Records page 166). First published in 1781, Hayley's The Triumphs of Temper was reprinted at least ten times before the end of the 18th century, but this edition is probably the one most collectors of Hayley would like to have. Hayley's mock-heroic have some resemblance to Alexander Pope's verse, but not the wit: his aim is clearly didactic, that of instructing young girls and women the value of tempering their lives in order to please their husbands. Thomas Stothard was the first to provide illustrations for the poem in the sixth edition of 1788. I quote from the William Blake Archive online: "Blake worked on these plates for the first six months of 1803. In his letter to Thomas Butts of 10 January 1803, Blake reports that he was "now engaged in Engraving 6 small plates for a New Edition of Mr Hayleys Triumphs of Temper. from drawings by Maria Flaxman sister to my friend the Sculptor" (Erdman page 723). At the end of the month, on 30 January, Blake informs his brother James of the commission and state that he would be paid "10 G[uineas]" for each plate (Erdman page 726). By the end of June, the engravings were evidently complete, for Hayley sent a copy of the twelfth edition to Lady Harriet Hesketh, William Cowper's cousin. In a letter of 1 July, she tells Hayley of her disappointment with the prints. In a letter to John Flaxman of 7 August 1803, Hayley, presumably referring to Hesketh's comments, states: "I am sorry to say that the Ladies (& it is a Ladys Book) find fault with the Engravings— our poor industrious Blake has received sixty Guineas for them from my Bookseller & I believe both the artist & the paymaster are dissatisfied on the occasion" (Bentley, Records page 157). In the same letter, Hayley also reports that he and Blake made the decision to omit from the engravings the figure of Minerva represented in one of Maria Flaxman's original designs. In response, John Flaxman remarked in a letter to Hayley of 24 August 1803 that one of his half-sister's drawings depicting "Serena viewing herself in the Glass when dressed for the Masquerade whilst her Maid adjusts her train" was overlooked for engraving (Bentley, Records page 166)."