Letters of the Late Rev. Mr. Laurence Sterne, To his most intimate Friends. With a fragment in the Manner of Rabelais. To which are prefix'd Memoirs of his Life and Family, Written by Himself. And Published by his Daughter, Mrs. Medalle. London, T. Becket, 1775, small 8vo.
FIRST EDITION of Laurence's Sterne's posthumously published 115 letters, including two from correspondents of Sterne. Many scholars consider one of the letters (number 58) to be a forgery and not by Sterne.
"This is the largest and best single collection of Sterne's letters as originally published. Of the 115 letters brought together here, two (Nos LVIII and LXXVI) had just been published from poor copies... but all the rest were new. Here also first appeared Sterne's brief Memoirs of his Life and Family, An Improptu, and The Fragment of Rabelais" (Cross II, pp.276-77.).
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Size: 102 x 157 mm (approx., each)
Condition:
[xx, pp.1-175, i (advertisement)]; [ii, pp.1-192]; [ii, pp.1-179]
Contemporary unlettered speckled sheep bindings with red speckled edges. Collated as complete with the copperplate portrait frontispiece of Lydia with the bust of Sterne by Caldwall after Benjamin West. A4 is midbound in volume one. Joints cracked but firm with all boards attached. Some patchy foxing, but generally clean throughout each volume. Contemporary ownership inscription of "Margt. Pitchford" in each volume with a further bookplate to each front pastedown of R.D. Macnaghten.
[CCWSH:0306a; ESTC T14758; Rothschild 1974; Cross II, pp.276-77]
