[SWIFT, Jonathan] The Publick Spirit of the Whigs: set forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the Crisis. London: John Morphew, 1714.
[SWIFT, Jonathan] The Publick Spirit of the Whigs: set forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the Crisis. London: John Morphew, 1714.

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[SWIFT, Jonathan] The Publick Spirit of the Whigs: set forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the Crisis. London: John Morphew, 1714.

8° (232 x 180mm). (Some light browning and soiling.) Stitched and uncut. Provenance: T.A. Hollick (bookseller’s pencil note; sold Sotheby’s London, 19-20 May 1980, lot 279).

FIRST EDITION, UNCENSORED ISSUE of Swift’s rejoinder to Steele’s Crisis; it is his final defence of the Oxford ministry and “one of his finest works” in Ehrenpreis’s view. “”The voice throughout is the true author’s … he does not assume a character or recommend opinions that he does not hold” (Swift. ii. 706). HOLLICK COPY. Teerink 596; Rothschild 2054.

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