"THE WAR AND PEACE OF ENGLISH POETRY": BYRON'S MASTERPIECE, DON JUAN, 1819-24, HANDSOME FIRST EDITION SET

BYRON. Don Juan. London: Thomas Davison [i.e., John Murray], 1819-21 (Cantos I-V, Volumes I-II); John Hunt (Cantos VI-XVI, Volumes III-VI), 1823-24. Six volumes bound in three. Quarto (Volume I) and octavo (Volumes II-III), quarto: 19th-century three-quarter polished tan calf, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, marbled boards and endpapers, top edge gilt, uncut; octavos: modern, similarly styled three-quarter polished tan calf, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt. $17,000.

Scarce first editions of Byron's great work—Cantos I-XVI complete in six volumes, with Volume I the scarce first issue, in quarto format—very handsomely bound.

"The War and Peace of English poetry, Don Juan contains… an epic sweep that moves from Spain, to the East, and to Russia before ending in England… At the same time that Byron's broad canvas foretells the scope of the great 19th-century novels, the poet's own sensibilities echo the picaresque 18th-century novels of his early reading, Smollett and Fielding, with their bawdy humor and sly inversions of vice and virtue. Unlike these prose narratives, however, Don Juan has no beginning, middle, or end. It draws us in, not to learn 'what happens next' but to hear what this seductive, confidential, teasing voice is going to tell us" (Eisler, 610). Byron planned to have his hero Juan tour Europe "with a proper mixture of siege, battle, and adventure, and make him finish… in the French Revolution… I meant to have made him a Cavalier Servente in Italy, and a cause for divorce in England, and a Sentimental 'Werther-faced man' in Germany, so as to show the different ridicules of the society in each of those countries, and to have displayed him gradually gâté and blasé as he grew older, as is natural. But I had not quite fixed whether to make him end in Hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not knowing which would be the severest. The Spanish tradition says Hell: but it is probably only an Allegory of the other state" (letter to John Murray, February 1821). When Cantos I through V appeared, they did so without the name of either author or publisher on the title page. Publisher John Murray refused to print Byron's dedicatory poem, which ridiculed English poet laureate Robert Southey, and Byron refused to put his name on a censored publication. Because of Byron's change from his long-standing publisher Murray to John Hunt (brother of writer Leigh Hunt) midway through Don Juan, complete first-edition copies with all cantos are scarce. "The first editions of the four volumes of the last 11 Cantos of Don Juan were… issued in three sizes: 'Large Paper' or demy octavo, 'Small Paper' or foolscap octavo, and the 'Common Edition' or 18mo" (Randolph). Volume I was published in an edition of 1500 copies, 150 of which were destroyed by the publisher after this volume was reprinted in octavo format; the 'large-paper' octavos were issued in editions of 1500 copies, with 'small-paper' octavos in editions of 2500-3000 and 15,000 or so in the common edition (Randolph). This set consists of the quarto first editions of Cantos I and II with 'Large Paper' first editions of Cantos III-XVI; the scarce half titles and all advertisements are present as called for, as well as the erratum slip for Canto XVI. Randolph, 69, 74, 82-83, 86-87, 91. Wise II:3-8. Armorial bookplate in quarto volume.

Quarto volume with light to moderate foxing, extremities slightly rubbed; octavo volumes bright and fresh. A desirable set.