1753 ORRERY'S Remarks on Life & Writings of Dr. JONATHAN SWIFT antique in FRENCH

 [SWIFT, Jonathan (1667-1745)]

 ORRERY, [John Boyle, Earl of (1707-1762)]


 Lettres historiques et philologiques du comte d'Orreri, sur la vei et les ouvrages de Swift...

London and Paris: Chez Lambert; 1753


 [8], 352 pp.

Engraved frontisportrait.

Full original French speckled calf.

Gilt ribbed spine with morocco label, edges sprinkled red, marbled endpapers.

FIRST EDITION in FRENCH OF ORRERY'S Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, published a year after the first.

Orrery's work on Swift is the first attempt at a biography of Jonathan Swift Orrery was a friend of Swift's, and though the closeness of their relationship has been questioned, Swift entrusted to Orrery the manuscript to his Four Last Years of the Queen for delivery to Dr. King in Oxford, and Orrery was the go-between used by Pope to get his letters to Swift. On his death, Swift left Orrery a portrait and some silver plate.

The English edition of Orrery's biography sold some 7,500 copies within a month.

This French edition was translated by Franois Lacombe.

This is an uncommon book:
ESTC lists nine copies, three in North America (Cornell, McMaster, and the Huntington Library). Teerink 1333.

Back joint beginning to crack with some chipping.

Wormhole in last fifty pages of text, with no serious lost. Aside from that, a very good, attractive copy.

Size 4 by 6 3/4"

Text in French
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