The Critic: or, a Tragedy Rehearsed.
London: T. Becket, 1781.
Price: $500.00
About the item
First edition, mixed state. Engraved title-page, lacking half-title and advertisements as often. ii, [iv], 98 pp. 8vo. 19th-century green morocco by Riviere. Extremities rubbed, some spotting. Bookplate. Rothschild 1846; Todd, The Book Collector (Summer 1956, pp. 172-3); Williams, pp. 222-3.
Item #308137
There are five 1781 "editions" so denoted on the oft-missing half-title. In a note in the summer 1956 Book Collector Todd argues that these editions are in fact re-impressions and not separate editions. Sheets of the various printings seem to have been gathered and bound indiscriminately. This copy with signatures A & B conforming to impressions 1-2 and signatures D-F conforming to printings 3-6. With the following points:
"f" descender intact above signature A; no press figures in gathering B; catchword "printing—" on p. 42 (eds. 3-6); press figures 52-3 and 62-6 (eds. 3-6); press figures 66-3 and 72-1.
The Critic, a burlesque of contemporary stage conventions based on George Villiers' The Rehearsal, was first staged at Drury Lane in 1779.
