Lot 271
Pope, Alexander
Rare Books, Maps & Manuscripts
Auction: Rare Books, Maps & Manuscripts
Description
The rape of the lock: an heroi-comical poem in five cantos. London: Bernard Lintott, 1714. First edition, 8vo., engraved frontispiece, titlepage in red and black, 5 other engraved plates by du Bosc after du Guernier, engraved headpiece to Canto 1, pp. 29 misnumbered as 26, p. 44 as 45, p. 45 as 44, modern full panelled calf in 18th century style, endpapers renewed, uniform slight paper discolouration
Footnote
Note: Griffith 29; ESTC T5726; Foxon P941; Rothschild 1570. First edition in enlarged form, five-canto form, the first two-cantos appeared anonymously in Miscellaneous poems and translations by several hands in 1712. "Its sale was phenomenal - three thousand copies in the first four days, Pope boasted. It remained so popular that in the same year a second and a third edition were printed, in 1715 a fourth edition, in 1718 a fifth, and in 1723 the sixth and last (of the separately printed poem. " Robert Halsband The Rape of the lock and its illustrations 1714-1896. Oxford, 1980, p. 3.