J. Johnson

Very rare set in uniform binding of the 4 journeys of Doctor Syntax illustrated with 3 large hand-painted color title vignettes and 97 aquatint plates also hand-painted (watercolor and gouache). First edition of the second tour, third tour, and final volume: The tour through London. The first volume bears a mention of fifth edition, undated, but certainly published at the same date as The second tour, in 1820. This fourth volume is generally never joined with the first three, it is only found separately. One will note that it is not entitled the fourth tour, but appears as a new book apart. Officially one considers indeed that there are three books which compose the journeys. We count 30 plates for volume I, 24 for the second and third and 19 for the last.
Contemporary English binding in full glazed turquoise calf. Spine with raised bands decorated with 3 compartments ornamented with mirrored tools, dotted fillets on the bands, and at headcaps. Red calf title label, black calf volume labels. Spine uniformly turned green. Green discoloration on boards. Traces of rubbing. Some rare foxing on an otherwise fresh set. One leaf partially detached in volume I. Two leaves protruding in volume III. In the 4th volume, a lack to the last page at the lower right corner.
Famous and very popular English satire of travel literature whose fashion culminated during the Romantic period.

First edition, second issue. The first of 1784 contains only 212pp. against 403 for this one, which has been expanded with the translation of Price's work: "Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution". Turgot's letter and Price's book benefit from a half-title.

 

Later, modern binding. Pastiche blonde cardboard Bradel binding. Smooth spine with pink sheep title and volume labels. Spine lightly darkened. Rubbing. Uncut copy, bound directly from the original wrappers. The first 2 leaves browned. Scattered browning. Last leaf with lack to lower right corner.

New and first illustrated edition with 10 charming figures by Stothard and engraved by Neagle, Heath, Angus, on heavy paper. A first collected edition, but unillustrated, had appeared in 1782 for the first volume and 1785 for the second.
Contemporary full brown sheep binding. Smooth spine decorated with 4 lyre stamps within a crown; fillets, roll tools. Red morocco title and volume labels. Dark area on the upper board of the first volume. Some foxing in the margins of the engravings, the tissue guards not having been removed. Handsome copy.
William Cowper prefigures English Romantic poetry, and Coleridge would call him "The best modern poet"; he indeed gave a new direction to English poetry by turning toward the depiction of nature, and his work was very well received by a large audience.
At this end of the 18th century, one will note that English taste and manner in engraving are quite different from that of France, England tending very clearly in these engravings toward Romanticism, while France was in the midst of the neo-classical period.

Narrative, of a five years' expedition, against the revolted negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America
J. Johnson & Th. Payne, London 1813, 4° (20,5x26,5cm), xviii; 423 pp. (4 p.) and (2 p.) iv; 408 pp., 2 volumes bound.
Second edition, actually third. First published in 1796. Illustrated with 79 full-page plates and 3 folding maps, sixteen of them engraved by William Blake after Stedman's drawings.

Modern half sheep, red and green morocco title and marbled endpapers, light foxing to some pages, otherwise a good copy.

The Anglo-Dutch officer John Gabriel Stedman (1744-1797) put down slave rebellions in Surinam from 1772 to 1777. William Blake's impressive portraits of tortured slaves were widely distributed by the anti-slavery movement. Although in the service of the crown and therefore of the colonizers, Stedman was soon regarded as a prominent figure of the abolitionist movement. Publisher Joseph Johnson (1738-1809), one of the most important in the United Kingdom, became known for publishing the works of radical thinkers and dissidents such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. As a member of the Society for Constitutional Information seeking to reform Parliament, he published numerous political works supporting the rights of slaves, Jewish people, women, prisoners, and other oppressed peoples around the world.