24. Goldsmith, Oliver

Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith
London 1853. William Pickering. Full red crushed levant morocco extra, ribbed, A E G moire front and rear fly endpapers. Bound for Charles J Sawyer. At inner cover is recessed ivory portrait of Goldsmith, inset with pearls. Inlaid polychrome leather with gilt tendrils. In clamshell box. In cosway binding. Aldine edition. The text begins with an introduction entitled "Memoir of Goldsmith" by Rev. J. Mitford, which is profusely footnoted. The particularly amusing section of the book following the "Memoir" (and occuring immediately before Goldsmith's works proper, is a collection of nine, well-chosen anecdotes about Goldsmith from: 1) Northcote's Life of Reynolds, 2) Cradock's Memoirs, 3) Davies's Life of Garrick, 4) Boswell's Life of Johnson, 5) Miss Hawkin's Anecdotes, 6) Colman's Random Records, 7)Cumberland's Memoirs, 8) Northcote's Conversations, and Hawkins's Life of Johnson. All are entertaining reading, for they bring out Goldsmith's double nature, although one of the most memorable (and most catty) is Boswell's. An excerpt follows. "His mind resembled a fertile but thin soil. There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck... He was very much what the French call "un etourdi" and from vanity and an eager desire of being conspicuous wherever he was, he frequently talked carelessly without knowledge of the subject, or even without thought. His person was short, his countenance coarse and vulgar, his deportment that of a scholar awkwardly affecting the easy gentleman." This volume is not only a beautiful 19th-century object, stunningly printed and bound, but also a wonderful read. This text, and the Poems of Shakespeare also offered in this auction, are bound similarly, boxed similarly, and both octavo Aldine editions.

1000/2000     SOLD: $2,352.00

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