THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE, WITH HIS LAST CORRECTIONS, ADDITIONS, AND IMPROVEMENTS.
(London: Printed for C. Cooke, [1795]). 152 x 92 mm. (6 x 3 3/8"). Three volumes. From the text of Dr. Warburton, with a life of the author. Cooke's Pocket Edition.
Contemporary red morocco, covers ruled in gilt, smooth spines divided into compartments by double gilt rules, gilt lettering and volume numbers, marbled endpapers. With 12 engraved plates, including three additional pictorial title pages, all with original tissue guards. ◆Joints and extremities somewhat rubbed, the three front covers with a couple small scratches or dark spots, plates a bit foxed because of acidic tissue guards, the text itself with only very minor defects--a very decent copy in solid, unrestored original bindings.
Embellished with engravings depicting both the poet and characters from the poems, this pocket-sized version of Warburton's edition of Pope is part of the publisher's series of "Original & Complete Works of Select British Poets, or Entertaining Poetical Library, containing the Poetic Productions of the most Esteemed British Bards." Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was generally recognized as the greatest poet of his age, and our editor William Warburton (1698-1779) became an intimate friend of the poet in 1739 after he defended in a series of letters Pope's "Essay on Man," the orthodoxy of which had been attacked. When Pope died, he bequeathed to Warburton half his library and the copyrights of all his works, material valued by Johnson at the whopping sum of £4,000. Having been given Pope's final corrections and additions to his works shortly before the poet died, Warburton published the first collected edition, in nine volumes, in 1751. At the same time, Warburton added a considerable amount of his own philosophical and theological commentary to the voluminous notes, and it is generally thought that these additions effectively Christianized works that otherwise would have reflected the Deism embraced by Bolingbroke, a close friend of Pope whom Warburton supplanted. Our pocket edition made Warburton's nine volumes conveniently portable, and added plates. (ST19922a)
Price: $350.00