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SWIFT, Jonathan.
The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin,
Accurately revised In Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-Plates; with Some Account of the Author's Life, and Notes Historical and Explanatory, by John Hawkesworth.
Publisher: printed for C. Bathurst, C. Davis, C. Hitch and L. Hawes, J. Hodges, R. and J. Dodsley, and W. Bowyer, 1755
Stock code: 70501
Price: £3,500 Currency Conversion
First Hawkesworth edition, which "for a long period supplanted Faulkner's Dublin edition (1735) as the authoritative text of Swift … The life of Swift prefixed to the first volume was a milestone in literary biography, being the first attempt at a balanced and judicious assessment of an author's character" (ODNB). Parts of vols. 1, 3, 4, and 6 were printed by William Bowyer; his records show 500 copies printed. Supplementary volumes were published in later years, but this is the complete set as first published, containing the great majority of his most important works, including Gulliver's Travels and A Tale of A Tub.
6 volumes, quarto (280 × 216 mm), each in 2 parts. Attractively bound about 1800 in full diced russia; spine divided into six compartments by double raised bands with decorative gilt roll between, gilt-lettered direct in two compartments and placed and dated at foot, elaborate gilt centrepieces in others, quatrefoil blind roll at head and tail; covers with border of palmette blind roll enclosing gilt two-line panel, flower-head tools, circles, and dots at corners, with inner panel formed by leaf tools at corners and an oval dotted roll; turn-ins decorated all round with gilt rules and blind decorative roll; drab endpapers, gilt edges, brown silk page markers. 25 engraved plates (of which 4 are imaginary maps), the figurative plates by J. S. Müller. Each part, except vol. 1, pt. 1, with separate title page; general title and titles to first parts of vols. 2–6 in red and black. Light rubbing, superficial worm to rear cover of vol. 1 with small area of more intrusive worm at foot of that joint, a fine set in a handsome Regency binding.
