[HAZLITT, William] Liber Amoris; Or, The New Pygmalion, London: John Hunt, 1823, 8°, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, engraved title with vignette on india paper, mounted, fly title folded back as usual to form a half title (title spotted and dampstained, advertisement leaf browned, occasional staining and light soiling of margins), original pink boards with longitudinal paper spine label (backstrip worn and rather unsuccessfully repaired, joints cracked, front cover rehinged), uncut, in a folding box. [Keynes 67]

Details

[HAZLITT, William] Liber Amoris; Or, The New Pygmalion, London: John Hunt, 1823, 8°, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, engraved title with vignette on india paper, mounted, fly title folded back as usual to form a half title (title spotted and dampstained, advertisement leaf browned, occasional staining and light soiling of margins), original pink boards with longitudinal paper spine label (backstrip worn and rather unsuccessfully repaired, joints cracked, front cover rehinged), uncut, in a folding box. [Keynes 67]

Provenance

Interesting comments by two early owners, the first signed "John Bull June 16/23," are penned on the front pastedown (a typed transcription is loosely inserted). The signature "Benj. Way" appears on the front cover (Way's books were sold at auction in 1834 for £1111 -- see Fletcher's English Book Collectors, p. 446).

Lot Essay

Although published anonymously and purporting to be the record of a passion experienced by a Scot, this description by Hazlitt of his own amour with Sarah Walker, his landlady's daughter, became a matter of public scandal. At the same time, it failed in its aim of bringing him back into sympathetic contact with Sarah. De Quincey called the work an "explosion of frenzy necessary to empty his overburdened spirit."

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