JUNIUS: Including LETTERS by the Same Writer, Under Other Signatures (Now First Collected) To Which are Added, His Confidential Correspondence with Mr. Wilkes, and His Private Letters Addressed to Mr. H.S. Woodfall. With A Preliminary Essay, Notes, Fac-similes, &c. in Three Volumes. STAT NOMINIS UMBRA [The Letters of Junius]

Junius [Francis Sir Philip]

Published by London By G. Woodfall, F.C. Rivington et al. 1812

About this Item

3 volumes. First Edition Thus, the First Critical Edition, The First Edition Edited by Woodfall and a large copy with wide margins, with preliminary essays, notes and additional material. With five folding facsimile letters and one engraved plate. Tall 8vo, bound in handsome contemporary polished calf, the spines with two sepia morocco lettering labels gilt, the compartments of the spines separated by triple fillet bands bordered by single stippled bands, the board edges gilt ruled. xii, *336, 248; xi, [1], 516; xiii, [1], 511, [1 errata] pp. A fine set, beautifully preserved, a bit of normal age to the extremities, a tight and clean and crisp, unpressed set. An elegant and handsomely bound and printed edition of a classic. This is the First Critical Edition of the most famous political satire of the later 18th century (Lowndes p. 1240), and the First Edition Edited by Woodfall. The "Letters of Junius" were originally contributed to the London "Public Advertiser" from the 21st of January 1769 to the 21st of January 1772 and were intended to discredit the ministry of the Duke of Grafton (although their political content is of little interest now, and indeed had little effect in their time). Their interest lies in their style and the controversy regarding their authorship. In the former they imitate Swift, Bolingbroke, and Tacitus, and use those influences to perfect the popular practice of using personal abuse in political controversy. The Encyclopedia Britannica states it succinctly: "The white heat of his malignity animates the whole." The authorship mystery kept people guessing for two generations, and discussions had hardly ceased by 1910. Joseph Parkes, the author with Herman Merivale of MEMOIRS OF SIR PHILIP FRANCIS (1867), gives a list of over forty persons who had been supposed to be Junius, among them Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, Horace Walpole, and Charles Lee, a general in the American Revolution. Opinion has since laid responsibility solidly upon Sir Philip Francis, miscellaneous writer and sometime dean of Lismore.

Seller Inventory # 33427

Bibliographic Details

• Title: JUNIUS: Including LETTERS by the Same Writer, Under Other Signatures (Now First Collected) To Which are Added, His Confidential Correspondence with Mr. Wilkes, and His Private Letters Addressed to Mr. H.S. Woodfall. With A Preliminary Essay, Notes, Fac-similes, &c. in Three Volumes. STAT NOMINIS UMBRA [The Letters of Junius]
• Publisher: London By G. Woodfall, F.C. Rivington et al. 1812
• Binding: Hardcover