[Quotation] Kilmarnock: | Printed By John Wilson. | M,DCC,LXXXVI.
One of Burns's warmest friends, Gavin Hamilton, advised him to
publish his poems in order to get enough money to emigrate
to Jamaica, where it was hoped he would escape from the
complications incident upon his love affair with Jean Armour.
In the preface Burns tells us that none of the poems was
written with a view to publication, but as a counterpoise to
the troubles of the world.
The _Proposals For Publishing By Subscription, Scottish Poems,
By Robert Burns_, only one copy of which is known, appeared in
1786, and ran as follows: "The Work to be elegantly printed,
in one volume octavo. Price, stitched, Three Shillings. As the
Author has not the most distant mercenary view in publishing,
as soon as so many subscribers appear as will defray the
necessary expense, the work will be sent to Press." A stanza
of a poem by Alan Ramsay was followed by the agreement: "We
undersubscribers engage to take the above-mentioned work on
the conditions specified." The book went to press in June, and
appeared the last day of July. Six hundred and twelve copies
were printed; three hundred and fifty were taken by the
author's friends; and, by August 28, all but thirteen had been
sold. Burns cleared about twenty pounds.
In October a new edition of a thousand copies was suggested
by Burns, but the printer refused to proceed unless the author
would advance twenty-seven pounds, the price of the paper,
"But this, you know," says the luckless poet to Robert Aiken,
"is out of my power; so farewell hopes of a second edition
till I grow richer! an epocha, which, I think, will arrive at
the payment of the British National Debt."
Unlike Messrs. Dunlop and Wilson of Glasgow, to whom Burns is
said, without much authority, to have first offered the poem,
Wilson, the printer of the little volume, was not a great or
leading publisher; but he succeeded in making a volume that is
very charming in appearance, and not without reminders of the
French press-work of the period.
A copy of this book sold at the auction of the library of Mr.
A. C. Lamb of Dundee, in February, 1898, for the sum of five
hundred and seventy-two pounds, five shillings--"the most
amazing price ever realized for a modern book."
Octavo.
COLLATION: _240 pp._
GILBERT WHITE
(1720-1793)
62. The | Natural History | And | Antiquities | Of | Selborne, | [Two
lines] With | Engravings, And An Appendix. | [Quotations] London: |
Printed by T. Bensley; | For B. White And Son, at Horace's Head, Fleet
Street. | M,DCC,LXXXIX.
"B. White" was Benjamin, next older brother of Gilbert, and
one of the chief publishers of books relating to natural
history. His interest in this book, therefore, must have
been more than usually great, an assumption justified by its
typographical appearance. It may, perhaps, be truly said
that, with the possible exceptions of Clarendon's History and
Percy's _Reliques_, it is the only work in our series having
special artistic merit.
Thomas Bensley was one of the first English printers to
turn his attention to printing as a fine art; and he may be
reckoned, with Bulmer, chief among the reformers of the
art. As Dibdin says, in the _Bibliographical Decameron_, he
"completed the establishment of a _self working_ press,
which prints on _both sides_ of the sheet by one and the same
operation--and throws off 900 copies in an hour! This really
seems magical. It is certainly without precedent." It was, no
doubt, with intent that Benjamin White gave the printing of
this book into such hands, and something of the sumptuousness
which afterward in Macklin's _Bible_ and Hume's _History of
England_ made Bensley famous may be seen in this work.
Our chief interest in the volume, as a piece of bookmaking,
centers in the illustrations, engraved by Peter Mazell and
Daniel Lerpinière. These comprise a vignette on the title-page
to _The Natural History_, with a line from White's own poem,
"The Invitation to Selbourne"; seven plates, one, the large
folding frontispiece, which is said to contain portraits of
four of White's friends; and a vignette on the title-page of
_The Antiquities_. They are all from drawings by a young Swiss
artist named Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, who settled in London in
1778, and was much employed in topographical work.
White's references to him in various letters give us quite
an insight into the details of making this delightful book.
Writing to Rev. John White, August 12, 1775, he says:
"Mr. Grimm, the Swiss, is still in Derbyshire; and is to
continue there and in Staffordshire 'til the end of the month.
I have made all the inquiry I can concerning this artist, as
it much behoves me to do. Mr. Tho. Mulso, and Brother Thomas,
and Benjamin, and Mr. Lort have been to his lodgings to see
his performances. They all agree that he is a man of genius;
but the two former say that he does hardly seem to stick
enough to nature; and that his trees are grotesque and
strange. Brother Benjamin seems to approve of him. They all
allow that he excels in grounds, water, and buildings. Friend
Curtis recommends a Mr. Mullins, a worker in oil-colours.
Grimm, it seems, has a way of staining his scapes with light
water-colours, and seems disposed much in scapes for light
sketchings; now I want _strong lights and shades_ and good
trees and foliage."
The inquiries seem, in the end, to have been satisfactory,
and by May the fifth of the next year the young man had been
engaged. An entry in _The Naturalists' Journal_, under date of
July 8, 1776, records: "Mr. Grimm, my artist, came from London
to take some of our finest views."
On August 9, 1776, he says:
"Mr. Grimm was with me just 28 days; 24 of which he worked
very hard, and shewed good specimens of his genius, assiduity,
and modest behaviour, much to my satisfaction. He finished
for me 12 views. He first of all sketches his scapes with a
lead-pencil; then he _pens_ them all over, as he calls it,
with india-ink, rubbing out the superfluous pencil-strokes;
then he gives a charming shading with a brush dipped in
indian-ink; and last he throws a light tinge of water-colours
over the whole. The scapes, many of them at least, looked
so lovely in their indian-ink shading, that it was with
difficulty the artist could prevail on me to permit him
to tinge them; as I feared those colours might puzzle the
engravers; but he assured me to the contrary."
In a letter to Mr. Samuel Barker, November 1, 1776, we find:
"In 24 days Mr. Grimm finished for me 12 drawings; the most
elegant of which are 1, a view of the village and hanger from
the short Lithe [the large folding frontispiece]; 2, a view of
the S. E. end of the hanger and its cottages, taken from
the upper end of the street; 3, a side view of the _old_
hermitage, with the hermit standing at the door, [the vignette
on the title-page]: this piece he is to copy again for Uncle
Harry; 4, a sweet view of the short Lithe and Dorton from the
lane beyond Peasecod's house. He took also two views of the
Church [opposite pp. 315, 323]; two views of my outlet; a view
of the Temple-Farm [opposite p. 342]; a view of the village
from the inside of the present hermitage; Hawkley hanger,
which does not prove very engaging; and a grotesque and
romantic drawing of the water-fall in the hollow bed of the
stream in Silkwood's vale to the N. E. of Berriman's house.
You need not wonder that the drawings you saw by Grimm did
not please you; for they were 3s. 6d. pieces done for a little
ready money; so there was no room for softening his trees, &c.
He is a most elegant colourist; and what is more, the use of
these fine natural stainings is altogether his own, yet his
pieces were so engaging in India-ink that it was with regret
that I submitted to have some of them coloured...." The plates
bear the legend, "Published Nov^r. 1. 1788 as the Act directs,
by B. White & Son."
The work appeared anonymously at the end of 1788, but it is
dated the next year. It was sold for one guinea, in boards.
Fifty copies were printed on large paper, with the plate on
page 3 in colors. Although it seems to have sold well, it was
the only edition issued during the author's lifetime. White
wrote to a friend in 1789: "My book is still asked for
in Fleet Street. A gent. came the other day, and said he
understood that there was a Mr. White who had lately
published two books, a good one and a bad one; the bad one
was concerning Botany Bay ['_A Voyage to New South Wales_,'
by John White (no relation), published in 1790], the better
respecting some parish."
The index, which White described when he was making it as
"an occupation full as entertaining as that of darning of
stockings," was criticised for not being full enough, a
criticism applicable to every edition issued since the first.
Quarto.
COLLATION: _1 l., v., 468 pp., 7 ll. Seven plates._
EDMUND BURKE
(1729-1797)
63. Reflections | On The | Revolution In France, | [Four lines] In A
| Letter | Intended To Have Been Sent To A Gentleman | In Paris. |
By The Right Honorable | Edmund Burke. | London: | Printed For J.
Dodsley, in Pall Mall. | M.DCC.XC.
It was well known, long before the book appeared, that Burke
was at work upon this subject. As early as October, 1789,
he had written a letter expressing his opinion on the
revolutionary movement in France, and in this volume he
but gave in permanent form a more elaborate and careful
presentation of the same subject. Interest in the new volume
was in no way diminished, but rather increased by the delay;
and when the little book made its appearance, November 1, in
a modest unlettered wrapper of gray paper, selling for five
shillings, it created a profound impression. The King called
it "a good book, a very good book; every gentleman ought
to read it," and it ran into eleven editions, or eighteen
thousand copies, within a twelvemonth.
Our author and his publishers were well known to each other
at this time: they had issued his _A Vindication of Natural
Society_ in 1756; and he had been the conductor and chief
editor of the historical portion of their _Annual Register_
for a number of years.
Octavo.
COLLATION: _iv, 356 pp._
THOMAS PAINE
(1737-1809)
64. Rights Of Man: | Being An | Answer To Mr. Burke's Attack | On
The | French Revolution. | By | Thomas Paine, | Secretary For Foreign
Affairs to Congress In The | American War, And | Author Of The Work
Intitled Common Sense. | London: | Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's
Church-Yard. | MDCCXCI.
"Mr. Burke's Attack," as we have seen, appeared in November,
1790, and Paine immediately replied with the first part of
his "Answer." Joseph Johnson, who printed Cowper's _Task_,
and published for Horne Tooke, Fuseli, Bonnycastle and Miss
Edgeworth, began the work and issued a few copies, but he
became frightened at the serious outlook and gave it up. It
was then put into the hands of J. S. Jordan, of No. 166
Fleet Street, who reissued it March 13, 1791, under the
superintendence of three of Paine's friends, Paine himself
having in the meantime gone to Paris. There were a few
corrections in the spelling of some words, some passages were
softened, and a preface to the English edition, which Paine
sent back from Europe, was added to the new edition.
The success of the book was enormous, and it ran into edition
after edition. In a letter to Washington, to whom it was
dedicated, Paine says, under date of July 21, 1791:
"... I took the liberty of addressing my late work 'Rights of
Man', to you; but tho' I left it at that time to find its way
to you, I now request your acceptance of fifty copies as a
token of remembrance to yourself and my Friends. The work
has had a run beyond anything that has been published in
this Country on the subject of Government, and the demand
continues. In Ireland it has had a much greater. A letter I
received from Dublin, 10th of May, mentioned that the fourth
edition was then on sale. I know not what number of copies
were printed at each edition, except the second, which was ten
thousand....
"I have printed sixteen thousand copies; when the whole are
gone, of which there remain between three and four thousand,
I shall then make a cheap edition, just sufficient to bring in
the price of printing and paper as I did by Common Sense."
The earlier editions of the first part were made uniform
with Burke's _Reflections_, and sold, so we learn from the
half-title, for half a crown; the second edition sold for
three shillings; and the cheap edition, which was _Printed
For H. D. Symonds, Paternoster Row, M,DCC,XCII._, sold for
sixpence.
_The Gazetteer_ for January 25, contained the following
announcement: "Mr Paine, it is known, is to produce another
book this season. The composition of this is now past, and it
was given a few weeks since to two printers, whose presses it
was to go through as soon as possible. They printed about half
of it, and then, being alarmed by _some intimations_, refused
to go further. Some delay has thus occurred, but another
printer has taken it, and in the course of the next month it
will appear. Its title is to be a repetition of the former,
'The Rights of Man,' of which the words 'Part the Second,'
will show that it is a continuation."
The title in full, runs as follows: _Rights Of Man. | Part
| The Second. | Combining | Principle And Practice. | By
| Thomas Paine, | [Four lines] London: | Printed for J. S.
Jordan, No. 166, Fleet-Street. | 1792_.
The volume was the same size as the first part, and contained
178 pages, selling, as the half-title tells us, for three
shillings. It was dedicated to Lafayette. This part was also
issued by Symonds in a cheap edition, uniform with the first
part, which sold for sixpence.
The printer alarmed by the "intimations" was Chapman. He had
offered successively, at different stages of the publication,
£100, £500, and £1000, for the work, but Paine preferred to
keep it in his own hands, fearing, perhaps, that this was
a government attempt to suppress the book. From a financial
point of view he was wise, since, on July 4, he handed over
to the Society for Constitutional Information, £1000, which he
had already received from sales. After Chapman's withdrawal,
Jordan took up the printing, but with the understanding
that if questioned he should say that Paine was author and
publisher, and would personally answer for the work.
The fears of the printers proved anything but groundless.
The persecution, by imprisonment or fines, of those who were
connected with the publishing (printing and selling) of the
book would "astonish you", as Dr. Currie writes in 1793, "and
most of these are for offences committed many months ago. The
printer of the _Manchester Herald_ has had seven different
indictments preferred against him for paragraphs in his paper;
and six _different_ indictments for selling or disposing of
six different copies of Paine--all previous to the _trial_
of Paine. The man was opulent, supposed worth 20,000 l.; but
these different actions will ruin him, as they were intended
to do."
Octavo.
COLLATION: _1 l., 162 pp._
JAMES BOSWELL
(1740-1795)
65. The | Life | Of | Samuel Johnson, LL.D. | [Twelve lines] In Two
Volumes. | By James Boswell, Esq. | [Quotation] Volume The First.
| London: | Printed by Henry Baldwin, | For Charles Dilly, In the
Poultry. | MDCCXCI.
Boswell had published, the year before, two specimens of his
work: _The Celebrated Letter from Samuel Johnson, LL.D.,
to Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, now first
published, with notes by James Boswell, Esq._, and _A
Conversation between His Most Sacred Majesty George III, and
Samuel Johnson, LL.D., illustrated with observations by
James Boswell, Esq._ They were probably issued to secure the
copyright, and sold for half a guinea apiece.
The whole matter of publication of the _Life_ was a source of
no small worry to our author. He was plunged, at that time,
in pecuniary difficulties due to the purchase of an estate for
£2500, and it seemed as if he might be obliged to accept the
offer of Robinson, the publisher, of £1000 for the copyright
of his beloved book. "But it would go to his heart," he said,
"to accept such a sum, which he considered far too low", and
he avoided the difficulty by borrowing the money. All of these
things made him very low-spirited:
"I am at present," he says, "in such bad spirits that I
have fear concerning it--that I may get no profit, nay, may
lose--that the public may be disappointed, and think that I
have done it poorly--that I may make many enemies, and
even have quarrels. But perhaps the very reverse of all may
happen."
He worked very hard over all the details connected with the
making of the book. "I am within a short walk of Mr. Malone,
who revises my 'Life of Johnson' with me. We have not yet
gone over quite a half of it, but it is at last fairly in the
press. I intended to have printed it upon what is called an
_English_ letter, which would have made it look better. I have
therefore taken a smaller type, called _Pica_, and even upon
that I am afraid its bulk will be very large." He gave much
thought to the title-page, and we are told that it was a long
time before he could be perfectly satisfied. This statement,
we are compelled to assume, refers to the literary composition
of the title, rather than to the construction of the page:
upon the latter he might have worked much longer and still
have been dissatisfied.
The work was at last delivered to the world May sixteenth (the
"Advertisement" is dated April twentieth), and was sold
for two guineas a copy. So successful was it that by August
twenty-second, 1200 out of the edition of 1700 copies were
disposed of, and the whole edition was exhausted before the
end of the year. A supplement was issued in 1793, at one
guinea; and a second edition with eight additional sheets
appeared in July of the same year.
With all Boswell's fussiness many mistakes crept into the
printing, and the book abounds in wrong paging, omission of
pages, and other things "of which," says Fitzgerald, "the
great exemplar is the first Shakespeare Folio." So bad were
these errors, indeed, that it was found necessary to issue a
small quarto volume of forty-two pages to correct them. This
pamphlet is sometimes bound up with the second edition. It is
entitled: _The | Principal Corrections and Addition | To The
First Edition Of | Mr. Boswell's Life | Of | Dr. Johnson. |
London: | Printed by Henry Baldwin, | For Charles Dilly In The
Poultry. | MDCCXCIII. | [Price Two Shillings and Sixpence.]_
"A Chronological Catalogue of the Prose Works of Samuel
Johnson, L.L.D.," is printed at the end.
Charles Dilly, the bookseller, was well known in his day.
Beloe speaks of him as "the queer little man ... characterized
by a dryness of manner peculiarly his own." He and his elder
brother, John, were famous not only for their successful
publishing ventures, but for their dinners as well. Boswell
speaks of "my worthy booksellers and friends, Messrs. Dilly,
in the Poultry, at whose hospitable and well covered table I
have seen a greater number of literary men than at any other,
except that of Sir Joshua Reynolds."
The engraved portrait of Doctor Johnson by James Heath, after
the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1756, which forms the
frontispiece to the first volume, bears the inscription:
"Samuel Johnson. From the original Picture in the
Poſseſsion of James Boswell, Esq. Publiſh'd April 10,
1791, by C. Dilly." A plate of facsimiles of Dr. Johnson's
handwriting, and another showing a "Round Robin, addreſsed
to Samuel Johnson, L.L.D., with FacSimiles of the Signatures,"
add to the interest of the second volume. Both plates were
engraved by H. Shepherd.
Quarto.
COLLATION: _Two volumes._ Volume I: _xii pp., 8 ll., 516 pp._
Volume II: _1 l., 588 pp. Portrait. Two plates._
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
(1770-1850)
AND
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
(1772-1834)
66. Lyrical Ballads, | With | A Few Other Poems. | London: | Printed
For J. & A. Arch, Gracechurch-Street. | 1798.
In Cottle, the Bristol bookseller and poet, Wordsworth and
Coleridge found a friend whose appreciation of their genius
took a practical form. As early as 1795 we learn from a letter
of Coleridge to Thomas Poole that "Cottle has entered into an
engagement to give me a guinea and a half for every hundred
lines of poetry I write, which will be perfectly sufficient
for my maintenance, I only amusing myself on mornings; and all
my prose works he is eager to purchase." When the two poets
planned to issue a book in which Coleridge should show
"the dramatic treatment of supernatural incidents," while
Wordsworth should try to give the charm of novelty to "things
of ever[y] day," it was Cottle who bought it. He says: "A
visit to Mr. Coleridge at Stowey has been the means of my
introduction to Mr. Wordsworth, who read me many of his
Lyrical Pieces, when I perceived in them a peculiar but
decided merit. I advised him to publish them, expressing a
belief that they would be well received. I further said that
he should be at no risk; that I would give him the same sum
which I had given Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Southey, and that it
would be a gratifying circumstance to me to usher into the
world, by becoming the publisher of, the first volumes of
three such poets as Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth--a
distinction that might never again occur to a provincial
publisher."
He gave Wordsworth thirty guineas for the copyright, and
issued the book with the following imprint: _Bristol: Printed
by Biggs and Cottle, for T. N. Longman, Paternoster Row,
London, 1798_. But this imprint did not remain upon the
title-page of the whole edition, for Cottle tells us that the
sale was so slow, and the severity of most of the reviews so
great, that its progress to oblivion seemed ordained to be as
rapid as it was certain. He parted with the largest proportion
of the five hundred at a loss, to Mr. Arch, a London
bookseller, who bound up his copies with a new title-page
bearing his name. The copies of the earlier issue are very
rare.
Shortly after the transfer, Cottle retired from business,
selling all his copyrights to Longman and Rees, far-sighted
publishers, both of whom were also Bristol men. In the
transfer the copyright of the _Lyrical Ballads_ was down in
the bill as worth nothing, whereupon Cottle begged the receipt
for the thirty guineas, and presented it to Wordsworth.
The work was entirely anonymous, with nothing to show that it
was a joint production. Coleridge's poem, _The Nightingale_,
inserted at the last minute, in place of _Lewti_, makes an
extra leaf between pages 68 and 69. It is numbered 69 (the
verso is blank), but no apparent confusion results since
the original page 69 is not numbered, in accordance with the
printer's scheme of numbering.
We catch an interesting glimpse of this poet-publisher in a
letter of Coleridge's to Robert Southey, written under date of
July 22, 1801:
"Poor Joseph! he has scribbled away both head and heart. What
an affecting essay I could write on that man's character! Had
he gone in his quiet way on a little pony, looking about him
with a sheep's-eye cast now and then at a short poem, I do
verily think from many parts of the "Malvern Hill," that he
would at last have become a poet better than many who have had
much fame, but he would be an Epic, and so
'Victorious o'er the Danes, I Alfred, preach,
Of my own forces, Chaplain-General.'"
Duodecimo.
COLLATION: _viii, 68 pp., 1 l., 69-210 pp., 1 l._
WASHINGTON IRVING
(1783-1859)
67. A History | Of | New York, | From The Beginning Of The World
To The | End Of The Dutch Dynasty. | [Eight lines] By Diedrich
Knickerbocker. | [Quotation] In Two Volumes. | Vol. I. | Published By
Inskeep & Bradford, New York; | Bradford & Inskeep, Philadelphia;
Wm. M'Il- | Henny, Boston; Coale & Thomas, Baltimore; | And Morford,
Willington, & Co. Charleston. | 1809.
Early in the year 1809 a notice in the newspapers, headed
"Distressing," announced the disappearance from his lodgings
of a "small elderly gentleman" named Knickerbocker; and
another notice, signed Seth Handaside, landlord of the
Independent Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, reads: