ADDISON, JOSEPH; SAMUEL THURBER (ED) — De Coverley Papers

Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1892. First Edition Thus. First Edition. Hard Cover. Publisher's full paper-covered boards, lettering on spine and cover. In the second number of Addison and Steele’s SPECTATOR papers eighteenth-century readers were introduced to the members of “The Club.” Heading the list of those characters who, among them, were intended to represent the entire range of public opinion and enlightened bias for the London of 1711 was “a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger de Coverley.” Sir Roger was initially conceived of as an aging Restoration rake. In the old days he. was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a duel upon first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffeehouse for calling him “youngster.” By the time of THE SPECTATOR, however, he had been mellowed by years of unrequited love for a “perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him,” and had become that quaint and lovable representative of the Tory landowning class, an amiable but rather ineffectual anachronism who was to stand as the most popular and the best remembered of the many characters that appeared in the 555 numbers of the original SPECTATOR. Spine sunned, covers solile, former owners' names on fep, else near fine. GOOD. The Academy Series of English Classics Series. 8vo 8" - 9" tall. 82, 13-adverts pp. Good with no dust jacket .