Francis The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall

by BACON

£5,500 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

BACON, Francis The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall London: John Haviland for Hanna Barret, and Richard Whitaker. 1625. 4to. Twentieth-century crushed red morocco by Sangorski Sutcliffe (front turn-in signed in gilt), ruled in gilt, spine lettered directly in gilt and gilt-ruled in compartments, raised bands, edges gilt, turn-ins richly gilt; pp. [9], [1 (blank)], 340; bound without blank leaf A1; A2–A4 a2 B-Z4 2A–2V4 2X2; hinges cracked but holding firm, slight offsetting to endpapers; sporadic light spotting (heavier to quires and 2K–2L), uniform light toning, small rust-mark to ff. O4–P2 with resultant hole to P2 touching two characters; else a handsome copy. Handsome first issue of the first complete edition of Bacon’s Essayes, enlarged ‘both in Number, and Weight […] So that they are indeed a New Worke’, the last edition of the work to appear in his lifetime. First published in 1597 as a modest octavo collection of ten texts, Bacon’s Essayes was successively enlarged and revised over nearly three decades. The present 1625 edition, the twelfth overall, is the first to contain the full complement of fifty-eight essays, and represents the definitive form of one of the great monuments of English prose. This is the first issue, with ‘newly enlarged’ on the title-page and Whitaker’s name in the imprint. In addition to nineteen new essays, this edition presents a completely revised version of the whole collection. Earlier essays were carefully reworked: phrasing was refin

• Binding: Hardcover

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