Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$65.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: A fairly pedestrian binding that is orange, darkened and looks like c.1920's product. Lettering on spine - author and title - in gold.
Seller: James Cummings, Bookseller, Signal Mountain, TN, U.S.A.
Price: US$145.00 + shipping
Description: 8vo, engraved frontispiece portrait, [2]. [i]-vi, 234pp, 4pp ads, blank; contemporary (original?) calf with red spine label. With erroneous catchwords on pp. 163 and 224. Thomas Gaisford, scholar and clergyman, was Dean of Christ Church at Oxford and curator of the Bodleian Library. Joints worn, front cover detached, short tear to base of front flyleaf; bookplate (Thos. Gaisford); spine and edges rubbed.
Seller: Locus Solus Rare Books (ABAA, ILAB), Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$200.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: pp. vi, 234 (4)["Books just Published by J. Newbery. and W. Frederick, Bath"] + Engraved frontis portrait of Nash by Anthony Walker after William Hoare. 8vo. Age stained. Contemporary full leather binding, boards detached. Mildly XLib. NOTE: With two autograph ownerships of: Joseph Bloomfield (1753-1823), New Jersey lawyer, Revolutionary War soldier, judge, and political leader. He and his wife supported a variety of social causes, with Joseph serving as president of the first Society for the Abolition of Slavery, organized in Burlington, NJ in 1783. In 1789, he donated a small plot of land to house the Library Company of Burlington. Bloomfield served as Mayor of Burlington from 1795 to 1800, and he went on to serve as Governor of New Jersey from 1801 to 1802 and 1803 to 1812, then returned to military service as a Brigadier General in the War of 1812. After the war, he finished his political career as a U.S. Congressional Representative from 1817 to 1821. Biography of the undisputed King of Bath, which Newbery commissioned to one of his favorite writers, Oliver Goldsmith (though he goes unmentioned in this first edition). Richard Nash (1674-1762), English dandy, better known as "Beau Nash," was born at Swansea. He was descended from an old family of good position, but his father from straitened means had become partner in a glass business. Young Nash was educated at Carmarthen Grammar school and at Jesus College, Oxford. He obtained a commission in the army, which, however, he soon exchanged for the study of law at the Temple. Here among "wits and men of pleasure" he came to be accepted as an authority in regard to dress, manners and style. When the members of the Inns of Court entertained William III after his accession, Nash was chosen to conduct the pageant at the Middle Temple. This duty he performed so much to the satisfaction of the king that he was offered knighthood, but he declined the honor, unless accompanied by a pension. As the king did not take the hint, Nash found it necessary to turn gamester. The pursuit of his calling led him in 1705 to Bath, where he had the good fortune almost immediately to succeed Captain Webster as master of the ceremonies. His qualifications for such a position were unique, and under his authority reforms were introduced which rapidly secured to Bath a leading position as a fashionable watering-place. He drew up a new code of rules for the regulation of balls and assemblies, abolished the habit of wearing swords in places of public amusement and brought duelling into disrepute, induced gentlemen to adopt shoes and stockings in parades and assemblies instead of boots, reduced refractory chairmen to submission and civility, and introduced a tariff for lodgings. Through his exertions a handsome assembly-room was also erected, and the streets and public buildings were greatly improved. Nash adopted an outward state corresponding to his nominal dignity. He wore an immense white hat as a sign of office, and a dress adorned with rich embroidery, and drove in a chariot with six greys, laced lackeys and French horns. When the act of parliament against gambling was passed in 1745, he was deprived of an easy though uncertain means of subsistence, but the corporation afterwards granted him a pension of six score guineas a year, which, with the sale of his snuff-boxes and other trinkets, enabled him to support a certain faded splendour till his death. He was honored with a public funeral at the expense of the town. Notwithstanding his vanity and impertinence, the tact, energy and superficial cleverness of Nash won him the patronage and notice of the great. He was a man of strong personality, and considerably more able than Beau Brummell, whose prototype he was. First edition with all of the correct points. Rothschild 1022; Tinker 1093. The early American ownership adds substantial interest to this curious book. **PRICE JUST REDUCED! W144
Seller: FAMILY ALBUM, Kinzers, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$285.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, new half calf period style, engraved portrait soiled with verses on back, back of title inscribed, lightly and uniformly embrowned, all edges gilt. Goldsmith was personally acquainted with "Beau" Nash; his biography of Nash at once gives us a witty, lively, and sympathetic portrait of Nash, and a vivid picture of Bath society at its zenith. This remains a delightful work and excellent reading. The first edition
Seller: G. W. Stuart, Jr., ABAA(emeritus), Yuma, AZ, U.S.A.
Oliver Goldsmith. The Life of Richard Nash of Bath. J Newbery and W Frederick, London, 1762.
Price: US$312.14 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: A First Edition copy of 'The Life of Richard Nash of Bath' Written by Oliver Goldsmith (November 1730 April 1774), the celebrated author and poet best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770), and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771, first performed in 1773). Richard Nash (October 1674 February 1761), also known as Beau Nash, was a celebrated dandy and leader of fashion in 18th-century Britain. He is best known for becoming the Master of Ceremonies at the rising spa town of Bath in 1704 and he retained this position until his death. He played a leading role in making Bath the most fashionable resort in 18th-century England and his death caused quite a stir at the time, which moved Oliver Goldsmith to write this work as early as 1762. Includes a frontispiece portrait of Richard Nash 'from the orginal painted by Mr. Hoare and presented to the corporation of the city of Bath. In a rebacked quarter paper binding with original leather boards. Externally, rubbed with marks and slight loss to the boards one board detached but present. Some loss and wear to the backstrip. Internally, firmly bound to the spine. Though the frontispiece and title page are suffering from some marks and age toning, the book is generally bright and clean with just the odd spot. Ink inscription to the page 127 written vertically across the page. Good
Seller: Rooke Books PBFA, Bath, United Kingdom
Price: US$312.50 + shipping
Description: 8vo, pp. viii, 237, [1], [2] ads; engraved frontispiece portrait; contemporary full tree calf, gilt lettering direct on gilt-decorated spine; spine rubbed with loss to most of the lettering, joints cracked, otherwise good and sound. The second edition was published in the same year and just two months after the first edition. "The biography É furnishes an excellent and lively picture of Bath society with Nash as its leading figure, though a harmless and kindly and sartorially resplendent one - 'a little King of little people É The second edition was somewhat amended from the first É The dedication appears in this edition for the first time" (Scott). NCBEL II, col. 1197; Scott, pp. 92-5.
Seller: Rulon-Miller Books (ABAA / ILAB), St. Paul, MN, U.S.A.
Price: US$490.51 + shipping
Description: FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 190 x 113 mms., pp. [ii], 234 [235 - 238 adverts], C6 in cancelled state, recently rebound in quarter calf, red morocco lable, marbled boards, gilt rules across spine; an attractive copy, but lacking the portrait. "Much has been written on Goldsmith's Life, partly in terms of its historical accuracy, but more particularly in an attempt to determine its dominant tone. For some Goldsmith's criticism prevails. And yet, notwithstanding the biography's reservations regarding Nash's character, it seems reasonable to see the Life as generally appreciative of an ambiguous subject who, as Goldsmith realized, was flawed because of his humanity in a town given to temptation, and was rendered complex by the matter-of-fact approach taken by his biographer: as he explained in the preface, 'I chose to describe the man as he was' (Goldsmith, 3.289). Thus Goldsmith's account ultimately develops themes identified in more ostentatious commemorations by William Oliver and William King: Nash as innovative reformer of social conduct and as benefactor, even a man of feeling'None felt pity more strongly, and none made greater efforts to relieve distress' (ibid., 3.333). But as an early celebrity biographer, Goldsmith also appreciated the dangers of such exposure. Consequently the lasting theme of this, still the most valuable account of Nash's personality, is sympathy for a subject who sacrificed happiness, integrity, and independence for immediate fame and popularity within a community of which he was equally master and servant" (ODNB).
Seller: John Price Antiquarian Books, ABA, ILAB, LONDON, United Kingdom