The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality. To which is added, A Paraphrase on Part of the Book of Job
London: A. Millar and R. Dodsley, 1751. Twelvemo, measuring 6.5 x 3.75 inches: iv, 296. Modern design binding of espresso morocco with windowpane pattern stamped in dark brown to boards and spine, lettered in silver across both boards (“THE COMPLAINT OR” to lower board, place and date of publication to foot of spine, “NIGHT THOUGHTS” to front board); charcoal and black marbled endpapers. Bound without preliminary blank, engraved frontispiece by “Parr.” Binder’s ticket of Gale Herrick, dated 1970, to rear free endpaper. Lightest occasional spotting to text. Housed in custom paper-covered box.
Early edition of clergyman poet Edward Young’s Night Thoughts, first published in 1742. Shaken by the deaths of his wife, his step-daughter, and her husband, Young wrote Night Thoughts to affirm his Christian faith in the face of doubt and grief: “What pain to quit the world, just made their own, / Their nest so deeply down’d, and built so high! / Too low they build, who built beneath the stars.” This 1751 edition includes an engraved frontispiece depicting a lone mourner in a moonlit graveyard at night. Pettit 13d. This copy features an early design binding by California bookbinder Gale Herrick (1909-2001). Herrick studied binding late in life, but became an important figure in the American book arts community, serving as the first president of the Hand Bookbinders of California, and as Master of the Press of the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco. A near-fine copy, handsomely bound.
Price: $850.00