New Idylles … Translated by W. Hooper MD. With A Letter to M: Fuslin, on Landscape Painting, and the Two Friends of Bourbon, a Moral Tale, by M. Diderot. London, Printed for S. Hooper … & G. Robinson … 1776.

GESSNER, Salomon.

About this Item

Large 8vo (263 × 182 mm) in half-sheets, pp. [4], 129, [1], plus etched and engraved title-page, head- and tailpieces, and 9 plates by Sparrow or Chambars after Gessner; printed on thick paper; some light spotting, dust-soiling in the upper margin of pp. 76 77; early ink ownership inscription of John Bell, Kensington, to p. [1]; nineteenth-century half morocco, rubbed, pebble-grain cloth sides, spine lettered gilt. £350 First edition in English of the Moralische Erzæhlungen und Idyllen (Zurich, 1772). The former works of M. Gessner have been received with that applause by Europe in general, as renders all apology for this publication superfluous, and all commendation by any individual unnecessary. The translator, however, cannot refrain from declaring the singular satisfaction he enjoys in presenting the English reader with a work, he thinks, equal in the beauty of composition (allowance made for the difference of language) to the Idyls of Theocritus, or Virgil, and far superior in benevolent and pathetic sentiments. The historical plates and vignets with which this work is embellished, were all designed and drawn by M. Gessner himself. The story of the Two Friends of Bourbon was communicated by M. Diderot to our author, who thought proper to publish it with these Idyls, as a monument of friendship that the cultivation of letters alone has produced between two men, whom distant countries have ever held separate (Advertisement). Adams DD46 ( Première traduction anglaise d un conte de Diderot ); Morgan 2319; for the first edition, see Borst 234 and Goedeke IV/1, 82, 9.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1544607519599

Bibliographic Details

• Title: New Idylles … Translated by W. Hooper MD. With A Letter to M: Fuslin, on Landscape Painting, and the Two Friends of Bourbon, a Moral Tale, by M. Diderot. London, Printed for S. Hooper … & G. Robinson … 1776.
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good