The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. In Three Books.
[London]: Dublin, Printed, London Reprinted for A. Dodd, 1728.
Price: $25,000.00
About the item
First edition. Engraved frontispiece (Griffith Variety 1 with "Dunci-" on second line of pendant). viii, [ii], 51, [1] pp. Collation: A-E^6 F^2. 12mo. Full red morocco gilt, a.e.g. by Riviere. Frontispiece restored at fore-margin, image with slight defect from paper flaw. Foxon P764; Griffith 198; Hayward 147 (exhibiting the octavo issue); Rothschild 1596. Provenance: Winston H. Hagen (morocco booklabel); Carl H. Pforzheimer Library; Gerald E. Slater (bought through Quaritch, sold his sale, Christie's New York,12 February 1982, lot 135).
Item #308222
The distinguished Hagen-Pforzheimer-Slater copy of the first edition of Pope's satirical masterpiece, a mock-epic reply to his critics (primarily Lewis Theobald) and other hack writers, as well as a broader critique of George II and Walpole. Published anonymously under a misleading imprint suggesting a Dublin first edition (which does not exist). Editions followed in 1729 (Dunciad Variorum), 1742 (A New Dunciad), and 1743 (Dunciad in four books).
This 12mo impression is the first and precedes the 8vo printing of the same year. Bound with the second edition of Edmund Curll's Key, which spells out Pope's allusions and provides full names where Pope only supplies a first initial. Thus the close of the first stanza ("Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first?") is glossed as "Meaning Mr. Theobald succeeds Mr. Settle, if he has not a worse Meaning," which of course he has, referring to the accession of George II the previous year.
Also bound with the first edition of The Progress of Dullness, which takes Pope's original title to The Dunciad and the one used to announce a sequel on the final leaf of the first edition.
[Bound with:] [CURLL, Edmund]. A Compleat Key to the Dunciad. London: E. Curll, 1728. Second edition. vi, [7]-22, [2, ads] pp. Collation: A^8 B^4
[and:] [STANHOPE, Hugh (i.e. William Bond?)]. The Progress of Dullness … which Will Serve as an Explanation for the Dunciad. London: [E. Curll], 1728. First edition. [iv], 34, [2, ads] pp. Collation: A^2 B-E^4 F^2.
