Esther

1824 · AQ21699 — London: William Darton 1824. 180pp. With an engraved frontispiece and two further engraved plates. Original publisher's red roan-backed marbled boards ruled and lettered in gilt. Rubbed surface loss to bumped corners and head of spine upper joint split. Near contemporary inked gift inscription to recto of FFEP plates a trifle browned and spotted offsetting to title. The first edition of a juvenile tale of libricide sure to make the blood of any bibliophile run cold. The chance discovery of a printer's woodblock representing the head of an elderly man leads to the reading of a manuscript account of the great-grandfather of a young group of siblings relating his time as a student at Christ's Hospital from 1725-28 alongside a collection of his poetry. It is mentioned that the young pupil spending a day in London is given the task - by a tea-dealer - of picking apart old books which have been purchased as waste paper and folding the sheets into bags. As for the manuscript poems it is agreed that they should be sent to 'the well-known friend of youth on Holborn-Hill' for publication - a thinly veiled reference to publisher William Darton. OCLC records copies at eight locations California Cambridge Florida Oxford Pennsylvania Princeton Toronto and V&A; COPAC adds no further. Darton H271 1. First edition. 12mo. William Darton hardcover