Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World . By Capt. Lemuel Gulliver" by Jonathan Swift.Motte, 1727, 4 parts in 2 vol., The Second Edition [vol. 2, second edition, corrected], 5 titles, engraved portrait frontispiece of Gulliver, 5 maps and 1 plate, advertisement leaf preceding title to vol. 2, *1-2 (fifth preliminary poem) misbound after title rather than b4, 2 plates trimmed at fore-edge with slight loss, some light spotting or browning but overall a crisp set, armorial bookplate of Samuel Wall Armiger, contemporary calf-backed boards, rebacked with original spine laid-down, rubbed, [Teerink 293], 8vo, Benj[amin] Motte, 1727. The first Motte edition, with the the 24-page setting of the Verses (which include the additional fifth poem 'The Words of the King of Brobdingnag', now ascribed to Pope). Rare copy of Swift's masterpiece.
Seller: Neverland Books, waalre, Netherlands
Price: US$4517.16 + shipping
Description: Stated Second Edition (actually fourth) 8vo. Contemporary calf, rebacked. (xxviii),v-xii,148;(vi),155,(viii),199pp. Engraved Portrait frontispiece, 4 engraved maps and 2 plans. Light worming in the lower margin of vol.1. & sl.browning to pages else a very good copy. Rare. A significant edition of Gulliver's Travels, the first to contain the corrections recommended by Swift's friend Charles Ford, and the first printing of the important prefatory 'Lilliputian' verses by Pope and Swift. This was a classic collaboration, the greatest poetic satirist of the age contributing to the age's greatest prose satire. "Gulliver's Travels has given Swift an immortality beyond temporary fame." Printing and the Mind of Man.
Seller: The Antique Bookshop & Curios (ANZAAB), Crows Nest, NSW, Australia
Price: US$5000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Octavo, 4 parts in 2 volumes. Though a stated "Second Edition," which comports with Teerink's second edition, this is understood to be the fourth octavo edition, with 24 leaves of verses preceding the first Part, understood to have been authored by Alexander Pope. Overall about very good in contemporary brown calf, with gilt borders and spines. Marbled endpapers and edges (though the marbling to the edges is almost entirely faded away). Spines heavily faded, with some of the leather dried out, but there are visible remnants of an armorial design on the spine, which very likely corresponds to the armorial bookplate on the front paste-down of each volume (that of "Courtown"). Corners slightly worn. Some outer joints tender, even almost cracked, but holding strong. Externally a somewhat worn, but apparently unrestored example, and uncommon thus. Frontispiece in second state (as called for here), and all other plates are present. Some mild and sporadic internal foxing, and a few very old, faint stains. Mild insect damage to the margins of Part IV, affecting perhaps a dozen pages, not approaching the text, and not visible externally. Altogether a handsome set in original, unrestored condition. This instant classic, having been for over two centuries an essential volume in great book collections (even in its later early editions), is often found with varying degrees of restoration, which this set has been graciously spared. Housed attractively in a custom-made red cloth clamshell box with felt lining and red morocco spine label. Given this book's labyrinthine bibliographical history, please contact us directly with any specific questions.
Seller: Cleveland Book Company, ABAA, Rocky River, OH, U.S.A.
Price: US$7150.00 + shipping
Description: 2 volumes bound as one. Second edition, published within a few months of the first editions and set from the type of the first issue of the first edition (the A edition). This is the first edition to include the "Verses," which had been separately printed in March of 1727. They were compressed into twenty pages and inserted here by the publisher after the title to Volume I and before the text. This is also one of the earliest issues of the second edition, with the portrait state as found in the first editions and in only some copies of the second, the general title, also early, does not mention Second Edition, and the advertisement leaf is present preliminary to Vol. II. Portrait frontispiece, and 6 additional plates including the 5 maps called for in the earliest issue, engraved head and tailpieces throughout. 8vo, in rarely encountered full contemporary mottled calf, the spine with a maroon morocco lettering label gilt. i-ii, [xx], iii-xii, 148, [x],164; [1] ads, [vi],155, [viii],199. A very handsome and pleasing copy, quite clean internally with no staining or spotting and just light mellowing. A bit of normative evidence of age, withal a very attractive and especially well preserved copy of this scarce book. RARE. Copies in contemporary bindings are regrettably uncommon, and this copy remains a fine example of the book in its original aspect. This edition included the five Verses (1. To Quinbus Flestrim. 2. The Lamentation. 3. To Mr. Lemuel Gulliver. 4. Mary Gulliver To Capt. Lemuel Gulliver. 5. The Words of the King of Brobdingnag.) which did not appear in the first editions. "Gulliver's Travels" is a biting political satire ingeniously styled after the many narratives of travel and exploration popular at the time, which Swift had read in the library of his employer, Sir William Temple. And though most satire, especially political satire, is quickly rendered unintelligible or uninteresting with the passage of time, Swift endowed his story with so much imagination that it has never passed out of the canon of classics in English literature. This, the most famous of Swift's works, was published anonymously as the author was afraid of the reception the book might meet with. His satire was directed at the prevailing powers of the day, and it has become known as one of the greatest literary works ever penned.
Seller: Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$9624.49 + shipping
Description: Third edition, Teerink's B edition, published only a couple of months after the first, together with the spurious third volume published the following year. This is a remarkably attractive set, uniformly bound in a well-preserved unrestored contemporary English binding. The first edition was published on 28 October 1726. Two superficially similar but distinct octavo editions followed in quick succession: the second (designated AA by Teerink) sometime in the middle of November, and the third edition (Teerink B) in December. A third volume, in two parts, appeared later in 1727; the first part is an original imitation of Swift's work, the second is an adaptation of Siden's The History of the Sevarites or Sevarambi (London, 1675-9). 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). The printing was chiefly managed by Alexander Pope, Swift's long-time friend. About a year before the first publication, discussing with Pope the progress he had made in "finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my Travels", Swift famously confessed: "the chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is to vex the world rather than divert it" (Swift, p. 434). The portrait occurs in three states, the first with the inscription "Captain Lemuel Gulliver, of Redriff Aetat. Suae 58." on a tablet under the oval (Gulliver's age matches Swift's age when the Travels was first published.) The second state, as here, has the inscription placed round the oval, the tablet with a quotation from the second satire of Persius, protesting the author's purity of heart; the third state is a retouched version of the second. Provenance: from the library of the Ricasoli-Firidolfi family, one of the earliest and most prominent noble families of Florence, with their 19th-century armorial bookplate in each volume and their numbered shelf labels to spines. ESTC T139452 and T139029; Printing and the Mind of Man 185 (first. ed.); Teerink 291 and 292. Jonathan Swift, Correspondence, 1999. 3 volumes, octavo (196 x 123 mm). Contemporary panelled calf, spines with raised bands, red morocco labels, board edges tooled in gilt, edges sprinkled red and brown. Housed in a brown cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. Engraved portrait frontispiece, 5 similar maps, and 1 diagram. Extremities rubbed, spine ends and corners worn, joints of vols. I and II cracked but holding, joints of vol. III with short splits at head and foot, but firm, contents browned, occasional foxing, otherwise clean. A very good set.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom