Description
Junius. Stat Nominis Umbra. London: Printed by T. Bensley for Vernor and Hood, Birchin Lane. 1797. ESTC citation number T11030. Bookplate with family arms of John Gerard Geller. [ii (blanks); i (frontispiece of Edmund Burke with guard); i (engraved title-page), i (printed title-page); iii (advertisement dated January 1799) verso, directions for placing the cuts; ix dedication to the English nation, verso of ix blank; xi – xxxi preface; verso of xxxi blank; xxxiii – xxxv contents of Vol. I; verso of xxxv blank; xxxvii – xxxix contents of Vol. II; 1 – 274; ii (blanks)] [ii (blanks); i (frontispiece portrait of Charles James Fox with guard); i (engraved title-page), i (printed title-page); ii (advertisement: Books Printed for the Proprietors of Junius’s Letters); 1 – 319 pages; ii (blanks)] , 8vo. 24 cm. x 14.5 cm; 23 cm. x 14 cm. 69 letters, 29 portraits.
Inlaid binding by John Mackinlay (1737 – 1821), with his book tag No. 8 Bow Street, Covent Garden on the inside front cover of both volumes. According to Ellic Howe in A List of London Bookbinders 1648 – 1815, Mackinlay was referred to as “the living father of the bibliopegistic art” by Dibdin (Bibliographical Decameron, ii. 519). This shop at 8 Bow Street burned down with Covent Garden in 1808. At the height of Mackinlay’s success, he employed 8 – 9 men, among them 3 finishers. He was by all accounts a colorful personality and known variously as “Black Jock”and “a dirty old brute.” Ellic Howe pointed out many anecdotes about John Mackinlay were “not fit for polite society.” Of his bindings listed as being in the British Museum by Ellic Howe in 1850 were: G. 11795-811, G. 11958-65, G. 11969-77. In Howe’s mind these were the set of Dugdale’s Monasticon praised by Dibdin. Front and back covers of both of these volumes are ruled in gold within which is an intertwined beaded and leaved border decoration. Inside a second, inner panel, also ruled out in gold, is a black morocco inlay on the mottled brown calf, around which is a gold stamped oval border. In the center of the oval is a gowned and plumed female deity in gold, with down-cast eyes, holding a staff in her right hand and gesturing with her up-raised left arm and hand. This may be the unsigned work of Thomas Armstrong, one of Mackinlay’s finishers.
Sold with this copy is a letter from Wilwarth Sheldon Lewis, W.S. Lewis, who signed himself as “Lefty.” The letter is on The Lewis Walpole Library stationery and addressed to a fellow Eli, Lucius F. Robinson, Jr., to whom this book belonged. W.S. Lewis indicates that the repairs made to both volumes were done by Glenn Bissell of Providence, R.I., in 1970, the date of the letter. Volume 1 has been re-backed, with some of the original labels laid back down. Volume 2 has had its covers reinforced, head band partially gone, chipped at the foot of the spine. Some off-setting from the portraits as is normal for a title this old.
Tour of the Isle of Wight Drawings Engraved by J Hassell 1790
Rev Timothy Johnes Manuscript Sermon First Presbyterian Morristown NJ 1784
