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~FULL TITLE: Hudibras. The first and second parts. Written in the time of the late wars. Corrected & amended, with several additions and annotations. / Hudibras. The Third and Last Part. Written by the Author of the First and Second Parts. ~Original Cambridge panel binding, double blind fillets to board edges, small tools in blind to corners of inner compartment. 8vo (12 x 20.5cm). Remains of gilt decor to board edges, rubbed. Wear to corners and board edges. Rebacked in polished red morocco, with raised boards and original or early red gilt title label laid down. All edges speckled red, top edges darkened. Repair to rear inner hinge. Endpapers starting to crack over front inner hinge, but hinges still holding firm. Armorial bookplate of George Simon Harcourt, Viscount Nuneham (1736-1809; politician, patron of the arts, and gardener, from 1777 Earl Harcourt), to inside front board, pasted down over abrasion where earlier bookplate has been removed (?). Signature of 'A. W. G. Lowther, F.S.A.' to inside front board above bookplate, dated 1953 (Anthony W. G. Lowther, architect and archaeologist, 1901-1972). Dates of Hudibras first editions in pen to inside front board. Bibliographic information (Wing nos) in pencil to front free endpage, with circular bookplate of Eric Gerald Stanley, Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor, University of Oxford (1923-2018; scholar of Anglo Saxon). Mild damp staining to lower outer corner of first 90pp. Repair to fore-edge of p.12. Foxing to endpapers, mild foxing to early and late pages. Bottom corners of pp. 95-111 slightly folded in. Two vols bound in one, each with separate dated title page. The 1674 first volume, Parts One and Two (ESTC R5370), represents the first joint publication of the two first parts of Hudibras (originally published in 1663 and 1664), with new revisions and additional satirical explanatory notes by the author. Text complete despite pagination. The 1694 second volume, The Third and Last Part (first published 1678), may have been issued together with the earlier parts (see ESTC R8021 and R36316), or separately (Wing B6318). Samuel Butler (bap. 1613, d. 1680), poet, a 'byword for neglected genius' (ODNB). Hudibras, hugely influential satire of Parliamentarian and Puritan factions involved in the English Civil War. On its initial publication, the poem 'was not only taken into his Majesty's hands, and read by him with great delight, but also by all Courtiers, loyal Scholars and Gentlemen, to the great Profit of the Author and Bookseller' (Wood, Ath. Oxon., 2.453). Important early editions of a classic work. ~Robust packaging. All UK orders trackable, others on request. Size: (2), 206, 189-202, (4), 223-412, (2), 254pp.
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