![[POPE, Alexander (1688-1744)]. An Essay on Man. Address'd to a Friend. Part I. London: J. Wilford, [1733]. 2o (375 x 241 mm). Woodcut title ornament, ornamental initials, head- and tail-pieces. (Very lightly browned, title with a few chips to fore-edge.) Disbound, edges gilt; preserved in cloth slipcase with the following disbound volume. Provenance: E. Hubert Litchfield, sold Parke-Bernet, New York, 4 December 1951, lot 753 (but subsequently removed from its Riviere binding) -- purchased (with the following) from John F. Fleming, New York, 11 November 1966. FIRST EDITION, LARGE-PAPER COPY, first issue according to Wise, second issue according to Griffith. A VERY TALL COPY, one quarter of an inch taller than the Rothschild large-paper copy. Ashley IV, pp.38-9 (no. 1); Foxon P822; Griffith 304 (issue G); Rothschild 1613.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/NYR/2001_NYR_09878_0093_000(033320).jpg?w=1)
Details
[POPE, Alexander (1688-1744)]. An Essay on Man. Address'd to a Friend. Part I. London: J. Wilford, [1733]. 2o (375 x 241 mm). Woodcut title ornament, ornamental initials, head- and tail-pieces. (Very lightly browned, title with a few chips to fore-edge.) Disbound, edges gilt; preserved in cloth slipcase with the following disbound volume. Provenance: E. Hubert Litchfield, sold Parke-Bernet, New York, 4 December 1951, lot 753 (but subsequently removed from its Riviere binding) -- purchased (with the following) from John F. Fleming, New York, 11 November 1966. FIRST EDITION, LARGE-PAPER COPY, first issue according to Wise, second issue according to Griffith. A VERY TALL COPY, one quarter of an inch taller than the Rothschild large-paper copy. Ashley IV, pp.38-9 (no. 1); Foxon P822; Griffith 304 (issue G); Rothschild 1613.
[With:]
[POPE, Alexander]. An Essay on Man. Address'd to a Friend. Part I. London: J. Wilford, [1733]. 2o (332 x 198 mm). Woodcut title ornament, ornamental initials, head- and tail-pieces. (Faint stain on title, final two leaves with horizontal tears to inner margin, touching one letter.) Disbound (some creases where previously folded). FIRST EDITION, LARGE-PAPER COPY, first issue according to Griffith, second issue according to Wise. Ashley IV, p.39 (no.2); Foxon P822; Griffith 294 (Issue A); Hayward 148 ("The present copy of Part I is [Griffith's] 'Issue A', for the priority of which he argues with skill and conviction"); Rothschild 1613.
[With:]
[POPE, Alexander]. An Essay on Man. In Epistles to a Friend. Epistle I [-IV]. London: J. Wilford, [1733-34]. 4 parts in one volume, 2o (343 x 220 mm). Half-titles in parts II and III (all issued, that in the third part bound after the title), advertisement leaf at end of part IV. Woodcut title ornaments, ornamental initials, head- and tail-pieces. Contemporary speckled calf gilt (rebacked, other small repairs, other works apparently removed from binding). Provenance: Elizabeth Heber (signature dated 1762 on front free endpaper) -- Mary Cholmondeley (signature on front pastedown) -- E. Hubert Litchfield (letters from Bernard Quaritch Ltd. laid-in; however, lot 754 in his sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 4 December 1951, does not correspond to the present copy) -- W.A. White (so listed in Grolier catalogue). Exhibited: Grolier Club 'This powerfull rime,' 1975, no. 35. [?]Third edition of the first epistle, FIRST EDITIONS of epistles III-IV, ON LARGE-PAPER. "Griffith (p.241) places this edition of Epistle I, 'Corrected by the Author,' before the so-called 'Second Edition' issued in the same year. Wise... argues convincingly that it is the third edition" (Rothschild 1615). Ashley IV, pp.40-45 (nos. 4,5,8,10); Foxon P827, P833, P840, P845; Griffith 307, 300, 308, 331; Grolier English 43; Rothschild 1613-15.
The four epistles of the Essay on Man were published successively on 20 February, 29 March, 8 May 1733, and 24 January 1734. The first editions of the first three Epistles appear in variant states, the priority of which is not always clear, but none of which are of textual significance -- apart from Griffith's issue "I" of Epistle I, which Pope revised. The "friend" to whom the epistles were addressed was Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. But this is not to say that the poem was simply a vehicle for Bolingbroke's deistical philosophy. Maynard Mack has aptly termed the Essay on Man "a public, social and classical poem" (Works, III, London, 1950, introduction, p. lxxiv), one that accepts the vastness and impersonality of Newton's universe, but one which, in its shaping of the familiar, also interweaves a "tissue of images from older and more human conceptions." 18th-century sociability and a Roman Catholic sense of corporateness are a key part of Pope's philosophical outlook, while his favoured metaphor of concord-from-discord can be traced back to Heraclitus. In Mack's view, the poem is able "to transcend its origins and establish contact with the collective religious and moral past. Between Paradise Lost and The Prelude, there is no other English poem of which this can be said" (p. lxxii). (3)
[With:]
[POPE, Alexander]. An Essay on Man. Address'd to a Friend. Part I. London: J. Wilford, [1733]. 2o (332 x 198 mm). Woodcut title ornament, ornamental initials, head- and tail-pieces. (Faint stain on title, final two leaves with horizontal tears to inner margin, touching one letter.) Disbound (some creases where previously folded). FIRST EDITION, LARGE-PAPER COPY, first issue according to Griffith, second issue according to Wise. Ashley IV, p.39 (no.2); Foxon P822; Griffith 294 (Issue A); Hayward 148 ("The present copy of Part I is [Griffith's] 'Issue A', for the priority of which he argues with skill and conviction"); Rothschild 1613.
[With:]
[POPE, Alexander]. An Essay on Man. In Epistles to a Friend. Epistle I [-IV]. London: J. Wilford, [1733-34]. 4 parts in one volume, 2o (343 x 220 mm). Half-titles in parts II and III (all issued, that in the third part bound after the title), advertisement leaf at end of part IV. Woodcut title ornaments, ornamental initials, head- and tail-pieces. Contemporary speckled calf gilt (rebacked, other small repairs, other works apparently removed from binding). Provenance: Elizabeth Heber (signature dated 1762 on front free endpaper) -- Mary Cholmondeley (signature on front pastedown) -- E. Hubert Litchfield (letters from Bernard Quaritch Ltd. laid-in; however, lot 754 in his sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 4 December 1951, does not correspond to the present copy) -- W.A. White (so listed in Grolier catalogue). Exhibited: Grolier Club 'This powerfull rime,' 1975, no. 35. [?]Third edition of the first epistle, FIRST EDITIONS of epistles III-IV, ON LARGE-PAPER. "Griffith (p.241) places this edition of Epistle I, 'Corrected by the Author,' before the so-called 'Second Edition' issued in the same year. Wise... argues convincingly that it is the third edition" (Rothschild 1615). Ashley IV, pp.40-45 (nos. 4,5,8,10); Foxon P827, P833, P840, P845; Griffith 307, 300, 308, 331; Grolier English 43; Rothschild 1613-15.
The four epistles of the Essay on Man were published successively on 20 February, 29 March, 8 May 1733, and 24 January 1734. The first editions of the first three Epistles appear in variant states, the priority of which is not always clear, but none of which are of textual significance -- apart from Griffith's issue "I" of Epistle I, which Pope revised. The "friend" to whom the epistles were addressed was Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. But this is not to say that the poem was simply a vehicle for Bolingbroke's deistical philosophy. Maynard Mack has aptly termed the Essay on Man "a public, social and classical poem" (Works, III, London, 1950, introduction, p. lxxiv), one that accepts the vastness and impersonality of Newton's universe, but one which, in its shaping of the familiar, also interweaves a "tissue of images from older and more human conceptions." 18th-century sociability and a Roman Catholic sense of corporateness are a key part of Pope's philosophical outlook, while his favoured metaphor of concord-from-discord can be traced back to Heraclitus. In Mack's view, the poem is able "to transcend its origins and establish contact with the collective religious and moral past. Between Paradise Lost and The Prelude, there is no other English poem of which this can be said" (p. lxxii). (3)