Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

[ADDISON, JOSEPH AND RICHARD STEELE]. THE SPECTATOR. In eight volumes. London: Printed by Darton and Harvey (vol 1); Printed for H.D. Symonds and Darton and Harvey (other volumes), 1797. £550 

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Eight volumes, 12mo in 6s, pp. xxv, [i] blank, 329, [1] blank, [16] index, with engraved frontispiece and three engraved plates; 340, [14] index, with four engraved plates; [iv], 323, [1] blank, [12] index, with three engraved plates; v, [i] blank, 7-302, [9] index, [1] blank, with two engraved plates; [iv], 301, [1] blank, [11] index, [1] blank, with three engraved plates; [iv], 306, [17] index, [1] blank, with three engraved plates; [v], [i]blank, 330, [11] index, [1] blank, with three engraved plates; [vi], 7-291, [9] index, with two engraved plates; some spotting and browning in places, light foxing (especially to volume four), and the odd marginal tear and loss, not affecting text, but otherwise fresh; uncut and in large part unopened in contemporary French interim wrappers, reinforced with printer’s waste from various French works; some light wear to extremities but a very attractive copy 

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A lovely copy of this very rare late printing of The Spectator, bound in26 French wrappers and clearly destined for the French market, with the bookseller’s label of the Librairie Garnier, Place de la Comédie 18, Lyon, on the front paste-down of the first volume. 

Darton and Harvey were best known as printers of children’s books; the only place in which they appear in the Bernard ‘Bibliographical History of the Spectator’ is in item 119, Addison and Steele, The British Essayists, 1802-3), while Symonds does not appear at all. The Librairie Garnier, as might be expected from its location near the Grand Théâtre de Lyon, specialised in the sale of plays and music printing; they appear to have beem selling music as late as 1830. 

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The engraved plates, most of which are signed Corbould, are dated 1793, with each captioned Parson’s edition of select British classics. 

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Not in Stephen Bernard, ‘Bibliographical History of The Spectator’ Electronic British Library Journal 2019; OCLC records three copies, although dated 1796-7, and with volume two with no reference to Symonds, at Mount Holyoke College, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Memorial University, Newfoundland, with a further copy at the Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg; not in ESTC nor LibraryHub.