HUNTER, Joseph.

£1,250 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

A Disquisition on The Scene, Origin, Date, Etc. Etc. of Shakespeare's Tempest. First edition, one of 100 copies. The book was published by the renowned 19th-century printer and publisher William Pickering, described by Keynes as having "done more than any other single man to raise the standard of book production in all its details, whether of subject matter, typography, or binding" (p. 32).Hunter's Disquisition was among the earliest critical works to propose a real-world location as the inspiration for Prospero's island. Joseph Hunter (1783-1861) was an antiquarian, writer, and Deputy Keeper of the Public Records at the Tower of London from 1833. The Hunter Archaeological Society, formed in 1912, was named after him. This edition is scarce in commerce, the last copy traced at auction appeared in 1934. Provenance: a) Part of the Pickering collection of John Porter (b. 1929), a bibliophile and compiler of a forthcoming bibliography of William Pickering. Porter's book labels, designed by Leo Wyatt (1909-1981), appear on the front and rear pastedowns.b) Joshua Roy Porter, Anglican priest, theologian, and collector (unrelated to John Porter), as part of his own Pickering collection.

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