Lot Details
Lot 32
BYRON, GEORGE GORDON NOEL, LORD Don Juan.
London: the Thomas Davison; John Hunt; John and H.L. Hunt, 1819-24. First edition. Six volumes. Original boards with paper spine labels, the second volume in slightly varying boards, housed together in a fitted cloth case. Cantos I & II in quarto, 11 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches, uncut; Cantos III-XVI in octavo, 9 x 5 1/2 inches, uncut; [iv], 227 pp.; [iv], 218 pp.; [x], 184, [2] pp., the last leaf ads dated July 1823; 151, [2], 4 pp., the last three leaves ads dated November 30, 1822; 168 pp.; 129, [2] pp., the last and ad leaf dated March 1824, with errata slip laid-in at end. Volume I rebacked preserving backstrip and label but still with some wear, a few other labels slightly repaired but otherwise an unrestored set in original, unsophisticated condition. A few spines with small losses along the joints or at tips, the worst being at the foot of volume V, volume I with small wormhole at gutter, light foxing mostly to first and last leaves and intermittently throughout but mostly quite clean within, the first volume with the bookplates of Robert Peel Sheldon and Frank J. Hogan.
Rare uncut first editions in original boards of Byron's Don Juan. An ambitious undertaking, Thomas Davison abandoned the quarto format of Don Juan after the disappointing sales of the first volume and it has been estimated that only 1350 copies came to market and 150 were destroyed. John Hunt took over the printing in 1823 and Byron died in 1824 before finishing the work, which is considered one of the greatest poems of the Romantics. Sold as part of the English literature collection formed by Frank J. Hogan, Parke-Bernet, 24 April 1945, lot 133.
Wise, Byron II, p. 3; Randolph p. 69.
C The Julius and Theodore Cohn Library
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