The Works of Alexander Pope
London: Printed for C. Bathurst, J. Rivington & Sons, B. White, T. Longman, B. Law, S. Crowder, J. Robson, J. Johnson, J. Knox, G. Robinson & Co., T. Cadell, J. Nichols, R. Baldwin, and J. Bew, 1788. Six octavo volumes, full contemporary mottled calf gilt, elaborate gilt tooling to spine, red and black spine labels. Small circular engraving of Pope neatly pasted to opening title page. Lightest wear to contemporary calf, tender front joint on volume five. Item #100105
Very handsome eighteenth-century collection of Pope's works, "printed verbatim from the Octavo Edition of Mr. Warburton," illustrated with copper engravings throughout. This collection contains Pope's letters and poems, including "Essay on Criticism," "The Rape of the Lock," "The Dunciad," and "Essay on Man:" "When the proud Steed shall know why man restrains / His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains; / When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod, / Is now a victim, and now Aegypt's God: / Then shall Man's pride and dullness comprehend / His actions', passions', being's, use and end." This set has a charming provenance: the books contain the armorial bookplates of Henry Edmund Austen of Shalford House, Surrey, with inscriptions to his wife Ann Amelia Austen in the first and second volumes, dated the year of their marriage. Another inscription, in the fifth volume, reads: "H. Austen, Oriel Coll. Oxon," the college from which Henry eloped with the equally underage Ann Amelia in 1805. Their marriage was long and happy. Bookseller tickets from B.H. Blackwell, Oxford, in each volume. A near-fine set.
Price: $1,350.00