[SWIFT, Jonathan (1667-1745)]
Lot 182

[SWIFT, Jonathan (1667-1745)]

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World... by Captain Lemuel Gulliver. London: Benj. Motte, 1726.

Closed12 July 2023

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GBP 6,048

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[SWIFT, Jonathan (1667-1745)]
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World... by Captain Lemuel Gulliver. London: Benj. Motte, 1726.
First edition of Swift’s masterpiece in a contemporary binding: an association copy, this being from the library of Swift’s correspondent Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, at Marble Hill House. Teerink’s ‘B’ edition.
Henrietta Howard (1689-1767) was mistress to George II and an intimate of Queen Caroline. Marble Hill House, her Neo-Palladian villa in Twickenham, was constructed between 1724 and 1729 and was frequently visited by literary luminaries including Swift, Alexander Pope and John Gay. 'Howard was […] a patron of the arts and a potentially useful friend to writers she admired. She and Jonathan Swift had been carrying on a gossipy correspondence for several years when Gulliver's Travels [...] was published in October 1726. At first, he tried to preserve authorial anonymity. But readers had their suspicions [...] The month after it was published, Howard sent swift a letter replete with teasing references to Yahoos and Houyhnhnms, the savage humanoids and ultra-rational horses Gulliver encounters in Part IV of his travels. In his reply, on 27 November, Swift feigned ignorance, claiming that he'd had to buy a copy of the book in order to understand her 'unaccountable' references’ (Bird). Michael and Orlando Bird, Writers' Letters: Jane Austen to Chinua Achebe (2021); Teerink 291.

2 volumes, octavo (192 x 119mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of the author in the second state, 6 engraved plates (occasional faint browning, minor soiling to general title in vol. II). Contemporary panelled speckled calf, double gilt-ruled borders, morocco spine labels lettered in gilt (spine labels probably later, some wear at extremities, slight splitting to joints of vol. II, headcaps of both vols. Just chipped). Provenance: ‘Removed from Marble Hill House’ (inscription in both vols. on blank endpaper facing title, this apparently being one of 511 books removed by Howard’s niece, Henrietta Hotham, in 1794).