THE HERMIT: OR THE UNPARALLELED SUFFERINGS AND SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF PHILIP QUARLL, AN ENGLISHMAN. WHO WAS LATELY DISCOVERED UPON AN UNINHABITED ISLAND IN THE SOUTH-SEA, WHERE HE LIVED ABOVE FIFTY YEARS, WITHOUT ANY HUMAN ASSISTANCE.

"A new edition," following the first American edition that was published in Boston earlier in the same year (from the sixth London edition). A popular fictitious voyage relating a British hermit's life on a deserted Pacific island off the coast of Mexico. The story describes Mr. Quarll's early adventures, his escape from a locksmith apprenticeship, and subsequent life at sea. He lived quite a free life, and was married to three women simultaneously, a crime for which he received a pardon from Charles II. "Generally considered among the best of the English imitations of Robinson Crusoe, [this work] remained anonymous until Arundell Esdaile.discovered a rare edition of 1727 in which the dedication is signed 'Peter Longueville,' who, according to Esdaile's plausible hypothesis, resented his publisher's alteration of his MS and their invention of Edward Dorrington [as author] and who therefore himself published privately his own edition differing from and denouncing the original.It was first published in chapters in a weekly newspaper, called the Public Intelligencer, shortly after the appearance of Robinson Crusoe.Later editors often changed the story considerably, but whether Longueville's own version had any influence on these later editions and translations is a subject not yet investigated" - Gove. EVANS 28298. ESTC W36160. COX II, p.479 (ref., attributed to Dorrington). NEGLEY 1462. Philip Babcock Gove, The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction. (New York, 1941), pp.262-68. Contemporary calf, rebacked and recornered, preserving original label. Closed tear to leaf N1, occasional light foxing and soiling, even tanning throughout. About very good.…