Title: The Minstrel
Publisher: John Sharpe, London
Publication Date: 1823
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Two volumes in one. 48 + 36 printed pages, two engraved title pages with vignettes by Richard Westall (very slightly foxed). All edges gilt. 9 x 14 cm. Contemporary beautifully patinated straight grained ruby morocco. Spine in compartments with ruled raised bands, and elaborate stylised floral gilt hand tooling. Boards with unusually fine gilt hand-tooled lyre motif, multiple single line fillets, floral motif corner pieces, blind fillets, further gilt fillet borders and finally a scrolling blind abstract surround (corners very slightly bumped, very slight wear at edges, in tiny areas and along hinges). Matching inner gilt dentelles, cornflower blue watered moiré silk and scrolling gilt palmette bordered doublures (in very good condition and only marginal and very slight wear). Complete with contemporary binders or booksellers engraved paper ticket on outer corner of verso of front free endpaper ("Wheatley & Adlard, 106, Strand, London"). Wheatley & Adlard were both publishers, printers and fine art auctioneers, but their engraved trade ticket is seldom found and information about their bookbinding commissions is very hard to unearth. The quality and style of the finishing work is not dissimilar to that of Edwards of Halifax, but by no means typical of them. Both books of The Minstrel by Scottish poet James Beattie. With two vignette engravings by Richard Westall, artist to Queen Victoria. James Beattie was a poet, moralist and philosopher. The two works that brought him fame were An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth and his poem The Minstrel of which the first book was originally published in 1771 and the second in 1774, and which constitutes his true title to remembrance, winning him the praise of Samuel Johnson. It contains much beautiful descriptive writing. Beattie was a co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783 and is one of the sixteen Scottish poets and writers depicted on the Scott Monument in Edinburgh. Seller Inventory # 5102