The Dunciad. With Notes Variorum, and the Prolegomena of Scriblerus. Written in the Year, 1727. [By Alexander Pope]. London: Lawton Gilliver, [1732].
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The 1732 issue of Pope’s celebrated Dunciad Variorum, the most elaborate early form of his great mock-heroic satire on the triumph of “Dulness” over wit, learning, and taste in Augustan Britain. First published four years earlier in 1728, The Dunciad is one of the defining satirical poems of the 18th century; this expanded form surrounds the poem with a brilliant apparatus of mock-scholarship, prefatory matter, testimonies, and the Prolegomena of Scriblerus, extending and deepening Pope’s parody of pedantry, Grub Street, and contemporary literary culture. The poem’s original “hero,” Lewis Theobald, stands as the chosen champion of the goddess Dulness, through whom Pope ridicules the corruption of letters, criticism, publishing, and public taste. A highly desirable early edition of one of the great English satires, here in handsome contemporary calf.
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Size: 109 x 173 mm (approx.)
Condition:
Contemporary full calf, boards lined in double-fillet gilt, repeating gilt device in compartments between five raised bands. Tooled red morocco title label extant to upper spine. Binding rubbed, some discolouration, but a handsome copy. Binding secure with boards securely attached. Shelf and edge wear. The engraved frontispiece is extant and a nice bright impression of it. Internally mildly toned, but generally a nice and clean copy.
