March 2021 Catalogue

57 I m a g i n e d W o r l d s E a r l y M a r c h 2 0 2 1 Rare First Edition, First Issue, Of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels — An Extraordinary Copy In Contemporary Calf 55. SWIFT, Jonathan. Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World. In four parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships. London, 1726. Two volumes. Octavo, contemporary full brown calf, custom clamshell box. $182,000. Click for more info An exceptional copy of one of the scarcest and most desirable books in all of English literature, with engraved frontispiece portrait of Gulliver, six plates (four maps and two plans), in beautiful, unrestored, full contemporary calf bindings. Exceptionally rare in first issue, and most rare and desirable in contemporary bindings. Almost never seen in such beautiful condition. A classic “at once a favorite book of children and a summary of bitter scorn for mankind,”Swift’smasterpiecewill “last as longas the language,because itdescribes thevicesofman inall nations” (DNB). “Aremarkable feat in thecreationof imaginary worlds as a vehicle for satire upon the political and religious establishments of the day” (Clute & Grant, 914). Frontispiece in second state (Teerink’s state 2a), with Latin inscription on tablet and vertical chain lines as is usual with many first state copies. Armorial bookplate (Bedingfeld); morocco bookplate (Carlebach). The 1948 Carlebach sale catalogue was titled “First Editions, Chiefly Eighteenth- Century English Authors in Original Bindings and Fine Condition.” This superb copy certainly fits those criteria. Text and plates clean and fine, a few small splits to joints near spine ends, unrestored contemporary bindings sound. A splendid and exceptionally desirable first-issue copy of this high spot of literature.