Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift. First Edition.London: for Benj. Motte, 1726.
Presented by Sammy Jay, Rare Books Specialist at Peter Harrington Rare Books.
2 volumes, octavo (191 × 119 mm). Contemporary speckled calf skilfully rebacked and refurbished to style, richly gilt spines, dark red morocco labels, two-line gilt border on sides; housed in a custom-made plush-lined brown cloth flat-back box. Frontispiece portrait of Gulliver (second state, as called for), 4 maps and 2 plans. Marginal dampstaining to a dozen leaves in volume I, and at lower fore-corner of first gathering in volume II, a few old pale ink splashes to B5-8 in volume I. A very handsome set.
First edition, Teerink’s A edition with all the necessary points to distinguish it from the two later printings (Teerink AA and B) also dated 1726. Teerink’s A was published on 28 October, AA some time in the middle of November, and the B edition in December. The first five editions of Gulliver’s Travels (three octavo editions in 1726, one octavo and one duodecimo edition in 1727) were all published by Benjamin Motte. “The clandestine business of getting into print a pseudonymous and satirically explosive political satire entitled Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World (known from the start by its more popular title, Gulliver’s Travels) was managed chiefly by Pope, with the assistance of John Gay and Erasmus Lewis.
For speed, and to counter the risk of piracy, Motte used five printing houses (those of Edward Say, Henry Woodfall, James Bettenham, William Pearson, and, for the greatest share, that of Jane Ilive). The first edition appeared on 28 October 1726 in two octavo volumes at the price of 8s. 6d., but with unauthorized deletions and insertions by Andrew Tooke (the brother of Benjamin Tooke jun.), and sold out within a week. Gay wrote: ‘From the highest to the lowest it is universally read, from the Cabinet-council to the Nursery’… Motte followed up with two more octavo editions in 1726 and a duodecimo in 1727, and there was a serialized version which began in the Penny Post (25 November 1726). There were two Dublin editions before the end of 1726, each set up from Motte’s first edition… The book sold well in French: the first complete translation appeared at The Hague in January 1727, and an abridged adaptation by the Abbé Desfontaines in Paris in April… Swift received from Motte £200 and possibly more from the sales of the book, largely due to Pope’s effort at instilling into his friend the principles of ‘prudent management’… Gulliver’s Travels is the book by which Swift is chiefly remembered, and it is the record of his own experience in politics under Queen Anne as an Irishman in what G. B. Shaw called ‘John Bull’s other island’” (ODNB).
