[Jonathan Swift] | Gulliver's Travels, 1726, first edition

[Jonathan Swift.]

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver. London: Benjamin Motte, 1726.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, 2 volumes, 8vo (200 x 132mm), engraved frontispiece portrait in second state, four engraved maps (one for each Part) and two engraved plans (in Part III), with separate pagination for each Part, contemporary panelled calf, housed in a collector’s folding box, boards lightly scuffed, some wear to corners and joints, occasional internal stains (e.g. vol. 1 J8-K1) but in general a crisp and clean copy

A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION (Teerink’s “A” edition) OF GULLIVER’S TRAVELS. The immediate success of Swift’s satire has made it a book of some bibliographical complexity. This first edition was published on 28 October 1726 but sold out within two or three weeks. A second edition was published in November and a third in December, followed on 4 May 1627 by a further edition that described itself as the “Second Edition, Corrected” even though it was in fact the fourth edition. This copy has the points that identify it as a true first including: “Subsidies” on Part 1, p.35, l.5; Part III, p.74 misnumbered as “44”; Part II, sig. G6 a cancel with “Part III” at the foot; Part IV, l.1, “buth” for “but”.

This copy belonged to the famous book dealer Lionel Robinson, who was one half (alongside his brother Philip) of the firm W.H. Robinson. The brothers are most famous for their sensational coup in 1946, when they purchased the entire remaining library of Sir Thomas Phillipps. 

PROVENANCE:

monogrammed book-label (? “IKJ”); Lionel Robinson, CBE, MC (1897-1983), with a short description of the book in his hand on a slip loosely inserted in volume one; thence by descent

LITERATURE:

Teerink 289; PMM 185; Grolier, English 42; Rothschild 2104, 2105 and 2106