Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

Illustrated by the etching club.

Item Description

FIRST EDITION. 8vo. 8 x 5.75 inches. 46 pp. + [2] pp. Publications of the Etching Club. Bound in original red cloth, gilt, boards with blind stamped decorated borders enclosing gilt title block. Bevelled board edges. All edges gilt. A little wear to extremities, including wear to corners and light foxing of endpapers and title page; otherwise a very good copy. Binder's label of Leighton Son and Hodge, Shoe Lane Laondon. Illustrated by 36 wood engravings, including title page vignette, by artists named in list of illustrations and drawn on wood from the original etchings. The Deserted Village, the poem on rural depopulation by the Anglo-Irish poet, novelist and playwright, Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74) was first published in 1770. The account of the place he calls Auburn may have been inspired by what he experienced during his Irish upbringing, while others have suggested the influence of Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire which was moved by the landowner to create Nuneham Park in 1761. The Etching Club was founded in London in 1838 by Charles West Cope (1811-90) as an artist's society which aimed to illustrate editions of well known authors. These etchings were first published in 1841, and with the text added in this edition by Sampson Low in 1855. (Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 202).