“AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION TO THE LIFE OF DEFOE’S BOOK”: STOCKDALE’S ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, 1790
DEFOE, Daniel. The Life And Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1790. Two volumes. Octavo, early 20th-century three-quarter tan calf, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, burgundy and blue morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
Stockdale’s edition of Defoe’s classic story of survival, the first edition with vignette title pages, frontispieces and 12 full-page illustrations by Thomas Stothard, a portrait of DeFoe, and a life of DeFoe by George Chalmers, beautifully bound by Riviere.
Of Defoe's immediately popular and enormously influential novel (first published in 1719), Sir Walter Scott wrote, "Perhaps there exists no other work… in the English language, which has been more generally read and more universally admired" (Allibone, 489). "Stockdale's edition was an important contribution to the life of Defoe's book. The handsome set restored the Crusoe text, which, by 1790, had been much abused. George Chalmers' Life of Defoe was the first significant biography of Defoe. Thomas Stothard, R.A., was a known artist, and his extensive and beautiful illustrations made Stockdale's the first edition so finely decorated" (Lovett 89). "Stothard was the first English artist to realize the visual potential of Robinson Crusoe… Stothard depicts Crusoe not as a sinful or isolated figure, but as a social man who leaves his family with regret and who rejoices in his companionship with Friday and, later, with the Spanish lieutenant. Rather than fear, he emphasizes contentment, harmony and the nobility of man… His designs set an idealistic and romantic standard that subsequent artists aspired to equal" (Picturing the First Castaway, Rutgers University). With a listing of DeFoe's writings at end of Chalmers' Life. Publisher's 14-page catalogue bound in at rear of Volume II. Bookplates.
A fine copy.