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cover her life from her childhood, to her emigration to Palestine in the 1920s, her rise as labour then foreign minister, through to her role as prime minister, including her leadership in the Yom Kippur War, which led to her resignation. The book was also published in the UK the same year.
before More’s rise to the heart of English and international politics, a world far removed from his imagined utopian island. The 50 extra-illustrations comprise portraits of More and his contemporaries, after F. Bartolozzi, Holbein, W. Marshall, Lombart, and others, alongside views. The engravings date from the 18th to early 19th centuries, including a series of 16 engravings by Frans van Bleyswyck (1671–1746). In his Reminiscences , Dibdin praised examples where his works were extra-illustrated, and notes he himself extra-illustrated a copy of this work: “I once received an urgent and unlimited request to illustrate one [of the large-paper copies], by the insertion of every portrait mentioned in the fourth section of my Introduction. I did so. The copy was bound by Faulkner in a splendid green morocco surtout, and was sold, on the death of its amiable and generous owner, for some threescore guineas, according to received instructions” (p. 270). Dibdin’s edition uses the text of the first English translation of 1551 and includes a bibliography of the early editions. The large- paper issue in a single quarto volume, and an octavo edition in two volumes were printed and issued apparently simultaneously. “Large-paper copies were issued in 150 (Dibdin and Brunet) or 250 (Lowndes) copies” (Windle & Pippin). Quarto (235 × 188 mm). Mid-19th-century brown morocco by White of Pall Mall (active 1830–57), red morocco label, gilt in compartments, elaborate gilt frame on covers, gilt turn-ins, light yellow endpapers, gilt edges. Engraved portrait frontispiece, illustration of More and his family and 11 woodcuts (5 headpieces and 6 to the text); extra-illustrated with 50 additional engravings. Armorial bookplate of Laurence Currie (1867–1934), insurance broker and railroad executive; he added to a collection of books and art begun by his grandfather Raikes Currie and father Bertram Wodehouse Currie; leather book label of bookseller and noted collector William Foyle (1885–1963). Foyle book label offset, contents with some light foxing, else a fine copy. ¶ Jackson 13; Lowndes p. 1607; Windle & Pippin A9a. Thomas Frognall Dibdin, Reminiscences , 1836. £7,500 [156950]
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The recipient Harriet Sebag-Montefiore was a prominent member of the London Jewish community. Her husband Harold was sometime president of the Anglo-Jewish Association. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Front endpaper a little discoloured from mounted slip, jacket edgeworn; a good copy. £500 [158384] 91 MORE, Sir Thomas. A most pleasant, fruitful, and witty Work, of the best State of a Public Weal, and of the new Isle called Utopia . . . with copious notes, and a biographical and literary introduction by the Rev. T. F. Dibdin. London: William Bulmer, at the Shakespeare Press, for William Miller, 1808 a desirable edition, attractively printed and bound First Dibdin edition, large-paper copy, splendidly bound and abundantly extra-illustrated; a particularly desirable copy. Utopia , first published in 1516, sets out an ideal political society, a representative democracy governed by philosophically-minded magistrates, written
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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