Item #122916 Fables by the late Mr. Gay in one volume complete. Gay, John.
Fables by the late Mr. Gay in one volume complete.

Fables by the late Mr. Gay in one volume complete.

1788. London: J. Buckland [etc.], 1788.

Sm. 8vo, 2 parts in one volume, viii (including woodcut frontispiece), 232 pp. Frontispiece and 68 woodcuts in the text. Old polished calf rebacked and lettered in gilt, minor scrape on lower cover, generally very good.

§ Apparently quite a scarce version which first appeared in two volumes in 1727/28. The Stockdale edition with some plates engraved by Blake (1793) is perhaps the best known of the 18th-century editions; this version is attributed to John Bewick by Hugo. The woodcuts are generally lightly printed and not especially skilled. "In 1727 [Gay] wrote for six-year-old Prince William, later the Duke of Cumberland, Fifty-one Fables in Verse, for which he naturally hoped to gain some preferment, although he has much to say in them of the servility of courtiers and the vanity of court honours." (Wikipedia). Hugo 4056. Item #122916

Price: $795.00

See all items in Illustrated Books, Literature
See all items by ,