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A CATALOGUE OF THE ROYAL AND NOBLE AUTHORS. with POSTSCRIPT TO THE ROYAL AND NOBLE AUTHORS.
([Twickenham]: Printed at Strawberry-Hill, 1758, 1786). 190 x 118 mm. (7 1/2 x 4 3/8"). Without the statement of the work's entry in the Hall-Book of the Company of stationers following the dedication in volume I (evidently discarded by the binder, as in most copies). Two volumes. FIRST EDITIONS.
Fine 19th century olive green straight-grain morocco decorated in gilt and blind, covers framed by multiple blind rules and palmette roll, central panel with gilt arms of Edward Vernon Utterson within a gilt fillet frame, raised bands, spine panels elaborately tooled in blind, gilt lettering, orange endpapers, all edges gilt. Title pages with engraved printer's device depicting the house at Strawberry Hill, volume I with engraved frontispiece by C. Grignion showing Earl Rivers presenting printer William Caxton to King Edward IV; volume II with folding engraved plate depicting Reason, Rectitude, and Justice appearing to Christine de Pisan inserted before "Postscript." Front flyleaf with ink monogram of Utterson; verso of front free endpaper with his encoded purchase record. Hazen 3 and 33; ESTC T63207. Spines evenly sunned to olive brown, faint offsetting from frontispiece to title page, early repair to paper flaw at head of one leaf, other trivial imperfections, but still an extremely attractive set--especially clean and fresh internally, in a scarcely worn binding.
Complete with the uncommonly found "Postscript," this biographical directory of lesser-known but highborn British authors is a fine example of the work produced by a notable 18th century English private press. Although Walpole's literary reputation rests principally upon his voluminous correspondence, he also produced a number of substantial books at the press he founded and named for his country estate, Strawberry Hill. The present item is a carefully researched and honest assessment of the literary contributions of a number of writers whose rank in society was generally greater than their reputations and abilities as authors. The royal authors include 10 kings and four queens, and the noble authors comprise 128 peers of the realm, 16 of these Scots, eight Irish, and 14 women. In the "Postscript" issued 28 years after the "Catalogue," Walpole acknowledges John Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, who had escaped Walpole's attention because he wrote in French. Walpole learned of his existence from the writings of Christine de Pisan (1364 - ca. 1430), and perhaps the chief value of the "Postscript" is the biographical sketch he provides of that important Medieval authoress. Strawberry Hill Press came to occupy a prominent place in the printing history of its period. Walpole said he modeled his press after that of Aldus, the Estiennes, and the Elzeviers, with results that Plomer says were "far above any of the other private press work of the 18th century." The previous owner of our work, Edward Vernon Utterson (bap. 1777, d. 1856), perhaps took Walpole and Strawberry Hill as inspiration for his own private printing establishment--Beldornie Press, named for his home, Beldornie Tower, in Ryde on the Isle of Wight--where he issued books in very small press runs during the first part of the 1840s. There, according to DNB, "he reprinted a variety of highly curious poetical tracts, of dates between 1590 and 1620," with a special focus on authors who were the exact opposite of those profiled in Walpole's catalogue. Utterson was interested in preserving works from more proletarian poets, whose works about life among the lower classes in the 17th century sometimes required him to apologize in a preface for "phraseology . . . occasionally swerving from the language of decency." A lawyer by profession, Utterson was also an antiquarian and dedicated bibliophile. A founding member of the Roxburghe Club, he amassed an impressive library that included copies of the first three Shakespeare folios. He had many of his books put into armorial bindings like the present set. Much of his library was dispersed in sales at Sotheby's in 1852 and 1857. (ST20893)
Price: $4,800.00