Adaptation

1785 · Dublin1785 — <p>GILPIN John aka COWPER William -- Adaptation: The life of John Gilpin taken From divers Manuscripts in the Possession of the Family and now published for the first Time by their Permission for the Gratification of the Public Curiousity respecting so extraordinary a Character. Dublin: Printed for Messrs. Burnet White Burton H. Whitestone Byrne Cash M'Donnel and Marchbank 1785. 12mo viii 144pp complete but lacking front and rear blank free endleaves; early brown tree-calf scuffed outer hinges and corners worn.</p><p>Rare first Irish edition of a little known entirely spurious and understandably comedic prose 'life' of the fictional draper from Cheapside John Gilpin star of William Cowper's ballad 'The diverting history of john gilpin'. Cowper's verse which follows Gilpin on an intended journey to the Bell Inn Edmondton during which he became separated from his family and was taken by an out of control horse to a town ten miles distant had first appeared anonymously in the Public Advertiser 1782. The poem's popularity was immortalised in a series of performances at Freemason's Hall by the acclaimed Shakespearean actor John Henderson 1747-1785 and well capitalised upon by the London ballad and print trade as well as by provincial stage-managers. This present attempt in thirteen chapters at telling the earlier and post ballad-journey life of the unfortunate Gilpin is perhaps unsurprisingly given the desire for popularity by association dedicated to Henderson. It includes a narrative re-telling of the abortive trip to the Bell as Chapter X 'How he intended to have dined at Edmondton and was carried Ten Miles beyond it' as well as reprinting the verse original 'as read repeatedly with the greatest applause by Mr. Henderson'. All editions of this fictional work first published by S. Bladon London 1785 and reprinted twice there in the same year are rare; ESTC locates only four copies of this first Irish edition in the British Isles BL Cambridge Dublin and NLI and just three elsewhere Princeton Rutgers and Nebraska-Lincoln. ESTC T99012.</p> Burnet, White, Burton, H. Whitestone, Byrne, Cash, M'Donnel, and Marchbank, hardcover