About this Item
xxiii (t.p. and Memoirs)+20 (Elegies - all just initialled but one 'W.S.' is not by Shakespeare but either Williams Strachey or Stradley)+252; clean, tight, unmarked and undamaged but patch of light-moderate tanning spreading from centre outer margin for much of text, also on pastedown margins as is common to books of this period being off-set from adhesive, no half-title; leather covers generally clean, edges darker than centre, double-ruled gilt marginal lines, edges and corners all rubbed, spine lighter but leather contiguous with covers, good small gilt-on-red title label. Includes his 'Characters' (his best known work, now well known to psychologists interested in the history of persoanlity studies) and The Wife, his best known poem (with numerous poems in praise of it preceding the text). Apparently extremely scarce, despite being a 'tenth edition' no others with same title on Bookfinder at time of listing prior to 19th cent. We cannot enter here into the sad tale of the author's short career which ended with him being poisoned in the Tower of London probably at James I's behest. The text does appear virtually identical to that of the 1614 2nd edition of The Wife which included the Characters, but does not include The Remedy of Love or Observations in Foreign Travels, but does end (p.239 -252) with a section entitled 'News from any whence, or Old Truth, under a supposal of Novelty' which consists of brief light pieces, many ostensibly from foreign locations such as France, Spain and Venice and others from Court, The Church' and 'The Bed' etc. One of these, from France, is dated 1616 which must be either in jest or not by Overbury. My thanks to Prof. Emma Smith for clarifying the 'W.S.'point. Seller Inventory # 011903
Contact seller
Report this item
