Sold by William Reese Company, New York, NY, U.S.A.
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AbeBooks Seller since July 13, 2006
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A later edition of this eight-volume set of The Spectator, bearing an inscription recording the set as a gift from the patriot printer, Isaiah Thomas, to Samuel McGregor Burnside, a colleague in the founding of the American Antiquarian Society. The present set is that of the London edition of 1789, and includes engraved illustrations on the titlepage of each volume by Charles Grignion or Simon François Ravenet after Francis Hayman. Though a later edition, each of its eight volumes bears a gift inscription on the front free endpaper that reads: "SM Burnside / Present from / Isaiah Thomas Esq." The inscription is almost certainly in Burnside's hand. Printer, patriot, publisher, chronicler of the early American printing trade, and founder of the American Antiquarian Society, Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831) was himself an admirer of The Spectator. His Worcester Magazine imitated The Spectator's style with such serial essays as those of "Tom Taciturn," "The Worcester Speculator," "Tom Tinker," "Nestor," "A Citizen," and others. Samuel McGregor Burnside (1783-1850) was an attorney and a founding member of the American Antiquarian Society. Born in Northumberland, New Hampshire, Burnside graduated from Dartmouth in 1805 and afterward studied law with Artemas Ward. He settled in Worcester in 1810, where he helped found the American Antiquarian Society in 1812, serving successively as the Society's recording secretary (1812 14), corresponding secretary (1814-23), councilor (1823-50), and librarian (1830-31). Originally published in 555 daily issues between March of 1711 and December of 1712 by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator has been described as "one of the most triumphant literary projects of the age," one that "transformed periodical writing in English" (Rogers). It set the standard for a new genre - the periodical essay - with the "Addisonian essay" becoming "a chief stock in trade of the eighteenth century magazine" (Mott). Taking inspiration from the range of voluntary associations then springing up across Europe, the Spectator styles itself as the imaginary proceedings of a fictional club, featuring a cast of recurring characters - including "Mr. Spectator," "Roger de Coverley," and "Will Honeycomb" - who together comprise the club's membership. Like their real-world counterparts, who gathered voluntarily in spaces outside of the traditional bounds of church and state, in taverns, clubs, coffeehouses, salons, and fraternal halls, the members of the Spectator's Club are bound by shared ideals of sociability, pleasure, amusement, wit, mutual interest, and fellow feeling. As one scholar points out, "the spectacularly successful" Spectator "was reprinted in book form repeatedly over the next century and beyond, on both sides of the Atlantic, and was among the most frequently read works of that century" (Landsman). Its popularity extended well beyond the metropolis, reaching America, where it was read and admired by the likes of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. In his Autobiography, for instance, Franklin famously describes how he learned to write by emulating the Spectator's style and prose, and there is no doubt that The Spectator's cast of characters inspired Franklin's own literary alter egos, "Silence Dogood" and "Poor Richard." In short, The Spectator's influence on early American letters can hardly be overstated. A set of one of the most influential 18th-century British periodicals, with significant American provenance. Pat Rogers, "Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 1, ed. H.C.G. Matthew & Brian Harrison (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p.326. MOTT, AMERICAN MAGAZINES I, p.41. Ned C. Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture, 1680 1760 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997), p.38. Leonard W. Labaree, Ralph L. Ketcham, Helen C. Boatfield & Helene H. Fineman, eds., The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (New Ha.
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