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Author: Swift, Jonathan
Title: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships
Author: Swift, Jonathan
Place: London
Publisher: Printed for Benj. Motte
Date: 1726

Description: 2 volumes. xvi, 148, [6], 164; [6], 155, [1 blank], [8], 199 pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait & 2 engraved plates (being maps) in volume 1; 4 engraved plates in volume 2, 3 being maps, the other a Liliputian anagram. Woodcut head & tailpieces. (8vo) 19.5x11.5 cm (7?x4½"). 20th century full brown lefant morocco, concentric central panels ruled in gilt, black & blind, gilt fleurons in corners, spines tooled in gilt, black & blind, raised bands, gilt-ruled turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; bound by Riviere & Son. The true first edition of this monument of English literature, resonating in our consciousness until this day. “Gulliver’s Travels has given Swift an immortality beyond temporary fame… the brilliance and thoroughness with which his logic and invention work out the piquancies of scale involved by the giant human among the Lilliputian and then by a mimikin Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians, ran away with the author’s original intentions” (Printing and the Mind of Man, 185). Thus while Swift may have originally set out to write another of his razor-like satires, generations of readers including children love this book for the interminably entertaining story line. The four parts are "Part I. A Voyage to Lilliput"; "Part II. A Voyage to Brobingnag"; "Part III. A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan"; and "Part VI. A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms". This copy is Teerink's issue A, with all the first issue points, the engraved frontispiece portrait of Gulliver being in the second state as usual. From the Caroline Boeing Poole Collection, sold by B.M. Rosenthal in 1977. Mrs. Poole was the sister of Boeing Aircraft founder William Boeing. This copy was cleaned and rebound c 1920, as books often were at that time, perhaps for Mrs. Poole. Armorial bookplate bound in of Thomas Macro DD of Bury St Edmunds and Great Yarmouth (d.1743/4, aged 60); he was University Librarian at Cambridge so he might well have been an active book buyer and perhaps bought this copy when it was published, as it is the rare first issue which was radically changed almost immediately after being published (see John Blatchly, Some Suffolk and Norfolk ex-libris. The Bookplate Society, 2000). Teerink 289. PMM 185. Rothschild 2104.

Condition: A bit of fading to spines; a handsome copy of a landmark work. Item number: 289242