A Tale of a Tub. Written for the Universal improvement of Mankind. To which is added, An Account of a Battel between the Antient and Modern Books in St. James's Library.

First edition. Ross & Woolley describe "Swift's four-shilling volume of 1704" as "the masterpiece of his early life, balancing and matching Gulliver's Travels, the imaginative crown of his later years". The three works - those two stated on the title and "A Discourse concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit" - date from the 1690s, when Swift was in the service of Sir William Temple at Moor Park. The Battle of the Books is dated 1697 in the opening address of "The Bookseller to the Reader." Ross and Woolley remark on the intellectual stimulation Swift derived from free access to Temple's library, "since so much of the satire in the volume is focused on books and reading" (p. ix). The first edition was published on 10 May 1704, two more editions appearing within the same year. This copy is second state as usual, with a blank space after "furor" on page 320, line 10, omitting the word "uterinus". Together with: A Complete Key to the Tale of a Tub; With some Account of the Authors, The Ocasion [sic] and Design of Writing it, and Mr. Wotton's Remarks examin'd. London: Printed for Edmund Curll, 1710. Octavo (195 x 120 mm), pp. [iv], 36. Disbound, later blue cloth backstrip. Outer leaves browned. Teerink 1004. The Complete Key was probably supplied by Swift's cousin, Thomas Swift. Rothschild 1992; Teerink 217. A Tale of a Tub, ed. A. Ross & D. Woolley, 2008. Octavo (189 x 116 mm), pp. [xii], 322, [2] (blank). Sig. A1 (Treatises writ by the same Author) misbound after A6, as often; complete with final blank Y2."A Full and True Account of the Battle" and "A Discourse concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit" each with separate dated title page. Contemporary panelled calf, red morocco label, red sprinkled edges. Custom red morocco-backed folding case, full gilt spine. Early ownership inscription of John Goodrich, Trinity College, Cambridge, to front free endpaper; a few marginal notes in an early hand. Expert repair to extremities, two small areas of surface loss to sides from overheated tools, internally crisp, a very good copy.…