Lot 177[SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON]
WYSS, JOHANN DAVID. The Family Robinson Crusoe, or Journal of a Father Shipwrecked, with his Wife and Children, on an Uninhabited Island. London: M[ary] J[ane] Godwin and Co., 1814. First English edition, second issue (preceded by a two-volume edition published the same year). Contemporary calf, rebacked with the original gilt ruled spine with red morocco label laid-down, slipcase. 6 7/8 x 4 inches (17.5 x 10 cm); 346 [1] pp., with the publisher's notice at the end of the text, engraved frontispiece and 3 plates after H. Corbould, bound without ads, a wide-margined copy. Small losses and rubbing to binding, gouge to p. 20 affecting a few words over five lines of text, a few intermittent stains, toned leaves and offsetting, minor thumbsoiling, the hinges cracked and the front endpaper detaching, ink ownership markings to front blanks, neat booklabel of the Library of Ruth and Reece Stuart, Jr., with a slip laid-in from Maurice Inman, Inc.

The first English translation of this well-loved juvenile adventure tale of a Swiss family bound for Tahiti that was shipwrecked on an island off the coast of New Guinea. The first part of this story was published in German in 1812 and was first translated and published in England in 1814 in two issues: first as a two volume work and, as here, from the standing type of the first issue but in a single volume with continuous pagination (by some reports this two volume edition was advertised earlier). The title reports the work translated from the German but it was actually translated from the 1813 French edition of Baronesse Montolieu by Mary Jane Godwin, juvenile publisher and wife of William Godwin (who had been married to Mary Wollstonecraft). The volume retains the publisher's notice at the end that the second part will be published once procured from Germany and translated, this however did not appear until 1849. Alderson & Oyens 16; Gumuchian 4907; Osborne I, p. 318.


C The Julius and Theodore Cohn Library

Sold for $126
Estimate $200-300


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