[Addison, Joseph, and Richard Steele]:

$3,750 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

THE SPECTATOR. A later edition of this eight-volume set of The Spectator, bearing an inscription recording the set as a gift from the patriot printer, Isaiah Thomas, to Samuel McGregor Burnside, a colleague in the founding of the American Antiquarian Society.The present set is that of the London edition of 1789, and includes engraved illustrations on the titlepage of each volume by Charles Grignion or Simon François Ravenet after Francis Hayman. Though a later edition, each of its eight volumes bears a gift inscription on the front free endpaper that reads: "SM Burnside / Present from / Isaiah Thomas Esq." The inscription is almost certainly in Burnside's hand. Printer, patriot, publisher, chronicler of the early American printing trade, and founder of the American Antiquarian Society, Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831) was himself an admirer of The Spectator. His Worcester Magazine imitated The Spectator's style with such serial essays as those of "Tom Taciturn," "The Worcester Speculator," "Tom Tinker," "Nestor," "A Citizen," and others. Samuel McGregor Burnside (1783-1850) was an attorney and a founding member of the American Antiquarian Society. Born in Northumberland, New Hampshire, Burnside graduated from Dartmouth in 1805 and afterward studied law with Artemas Ward. He settled in Worcester in 1810, where he helped found the American Antiquarian Society in 1812, serving successively as the Society's recording secretary (1812–14), corresponding secretary (1814-23), councilor (182

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