A fine and scarce item of English history and culture, a most unusual item indeed, a variant edition, the true First Edition having been published in 1712 (Allibone, 1965, p. 656), rebound in marbled paper over boards, polished red calf leather over tips and spine, fine gilt-tooled title to spine, moderate rubbing to, scuffing of edges, spine head and foot. Measures 8″ tall and 5 1/4″ wide.
Underneath author’s name on title page is “quo te moeri pedes? An, quo via ducit, in Urbem?” (where are you going to mourn? Or, where does the road lead, into the city?).
Beautiful black-and-white engraved heads and tails. Fine engraved title page vignette, being of the “Cross-Keys between the Temple Gates in Fleetstreet.”
Withdrawn from the Harvard College Library, then called the Harvard University Library, having first been a gift there in 1902 from Edgar H. Wells (Class of 1897), with an ink-stamp here and an embossed stamp there. Some but not a lot of foxing, minor to moderate toning to fine paper, else quite readable; endpaper detached but present up front, minor loss of rear pastedown.
The epic poem Trivia (1716) is by “Mr. Gay,” a.k.a. John Gay (1682-1732). The title takes the Latin word for “crossroads” and is a paean to “the Goddess of Crossroads,” Diana, invoked in the opening stanza. Approximately 1000 lines, composed of three books, are devoted to the perils of walking in London in the 1710s, perils social, physical, linguistic and climatological. It spans 24 hours, a full day and night. Dedication up front to “Mr. Swift” (Jonathan Swift), a falsely modest caveat preceding it, and then offers advice in heroic couplets on how to dress properly, what kinds of footwear are best, how to avoid having urine and feces dumped on one, and then how to look out for and avoid overflowing gutters, pickpockets, wig thieves, mud splashes and orphans.
He offers also quite colorful sketches of ballad singers, thieves, bullies, chairmen, footmen, bouncers and public house owners. Interestingly, the full Index (beginning following p. 80) is quite involved, and lists alleys not to be walked in at night, booksellers, “skill’d in the Weather,” the usefullness of canes, the obstacles created by wheel-barrows, drays not to be walked behind, and so on. The poem ends, “Consider, Reader, what Fatigues I’ve known, The Toils, the Perils of the wintry Town; What Riots seen, what bustling Crouds I bor’d, How oft’ I cross’d where Carts and Coaches roar’d; Yet shall I bless my Labours, if Mankind Their future Safety from my Dangers find. Thus the bold Traveller, innur’d to Toil, Whose Steps have printed Asia’s desert Soil, The Bar’rous Arabs Haunt; or shiv’ring crosst. Dark Greenland Mountains of eternal Frost; Whom Providence, in length of Years, restores To the wish’d Harbour of his native SHores; Sets forth his Journals fo the publick View, To caution, by his Woes, the wandring Crew. And now compleat my gen’rous Labours lye, Finishe’d, and ripe for Immortality.”
[3], 1-80 [10] pp.
Offered by Structure, Verses, Agency Books
$295
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