[Bickerstaff, Isaac]:

$1,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF AMBROSE GWINETT, APPRENTICE TO AN ATTORNEY AT LAW. WHO, FOR A MURDER WHICH HE NEVER COMMITTED, WAS TRIED, CONDEMNED, EXECUTED, AND HUNG IN CHAINS, IN OLD-ENGLAND; YET LIVED ... A rare early American printing of the apocryphal autobiography of Ambrose Gwinett, a popular adventure narrative in the United States and Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The true first publication date and author have never been established, although DNB attributes authorship to Isaac Bickerstaff, noting a copy at the British Museum bearing the following notation from an early owner: "Dr. Percy told me that he had heard that this pamphlet was a mere fiction, written by Mr. Bickerstaffe, the dramatic poet." Isaac Bickerstaff (1733–1812?) was an Irish playwright and librettist whose farces and comic operas were popular in the late 18th century. The earliest dated edition is 1770, and the earliest American editions include a Boston printing from 1782, located in only one copy at the Library of Congress, and Norwich & Philadelphia printings from 1784. Although there is no place of publication on the present copy, a comparison against a copy of The Prodigal Daughter (Hartford: For the Travelling Booksellers, 1799) supports the attribution to an American printer, most compellingly in the use of the same type and design for both imprint lines. The last page bears the ownership signature of the teenage David Sikes Jr. (1788–1864), a descendent of Richard Sikes, one

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