Jonathan Swift | Gulliver's travels, London, 1726, 2 volumes, contemporary calf, edition "B"

[Jonathan Swift]

Travels into several remote nations of the world. In four parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships. Vol. I (-II.; A key, being observations and explanatory notes, upon the travels of Lemuel Gulliver). London: for Benjamin Motte, 1726

FIRST EDITION, Teerink's edition "B", 2 volumes, 8vo (192 x 113mm.), Teerink's engraved frontispiece portrait of Gulliver (Teerink's second state, with vertical chain lines), woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, 6 engraved maps and plates, 3pp. advertisements for H. Curll at end of the Key, contemporary calf, double gilt fillet border, red morocco lettering-pieces, bindings slightly rubbed, joints repaired, spines creased and rubbed

This copy also contains the first "Key" to Gulliver's Travels; four "Keys" were printed, sometimes found bound in with the text, and sometimes separately. They were supposedly written by an Italian in London called Corolini di Marco but the author was the printer Edmund Curll, whose son Henry printed the work. They effectively acted as an abridged version of the text, with numerous quotations from the original, and were published very soon after Motte's edition; the first appeared in an advert in late November 1726.

LITERATURE:

ESTC T139452 & T2486; Teerink & Scouten 291 (& cf. 1215, all 4 Keys)

PROVENANCE:

J. Merivale, early signature on flyleaves