Sale 21BP02 | Lot 121

[ADDISON, JOSEPH & STEELE, RICHARD] [The Tatler]. The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.

Catalogue: Rare Books, Autographs & Maps

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Lot Details

Lot 121
[ADDISON, JOSEPH & STEELE, RICHARD] [The Tatler]. The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.
London: John Morphew, 1710-11. First edition. Two volumes in one. The original folio issues, numbers 1-271 (all published), complete with general titles, dedications, and indices. Contemporary paneled calf, rebacked adding leather but preserving the original spine strip and red morocco lettering label, housed in a cloth case. 13 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches (35 x 20 cm); iv, nos. 1-114, viii, nos. 115-271, iv, vi (indices). The binding sound, the front free endpaper with chips and detaching, the contents foxed, sometimes heavily, a few leaves trimmed close with some loss of issue number, the general title trimmed with partial loss of binding instruction at foot, bookplate of Sir Charles Mordaunt, 2st Earl of Monmouth.

Isaac Bickerstaff was a pseudonym used by Jonathan Swift as a hoax to predict the death of then famous Almanac-maker and astrologer John Partridge. Writing as Bickerstaff for the last time, Swift published A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff in 1709, the same year Joseph Addison and Richard Steele took up the name in publishing The Tatler, which would have occasional contributions by Swift. Published as a broadsheet newspaper, The Tatler dished out both true and fanciful coffeehouse gossip and cultivated essays on contemporary manner. The first anonymously published newspaper of its kind, The Tatler spawned early imitators such as Addison and Steele's own Spectator, Samuel Johnson's Rambler and Idler, and Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. The genre persists to this day. This copy sold in A Selection from the Library at Walton Hall, Warwickshire, The Property of the late Mary Louisa, Lady Mordaunt Sotheby's London, 15 November 1948, lot 941. Grolier English 39; Rothschild 1948. ESTC P1919.


C The Julius and Theodore Cohn Library

Estimate: $600 - $900

Sold for $2,835 (includes buyer's premium)

Additional Notes & Condition Report

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Estimate: $600 - $900

Sold for $2,835 (includes buyer's premium)

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Catalogue Info

Rare Books, Autographs & Maps

Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 10am EDT