Friday, May 9, 2014

A Virtual Tour
of
My Collection of Essays


The essay, as a literary form, resembles the lyric, in so far as it is moulded by some central mood––whimsical, serious, or satirical. Give the mood, and the essay, from the first sentence to the last, grows around it as the cocoon grows around the silkworm. The essay–writer is a chartered libertine and a law unto himself. A quick ear and eye, an ability to discern the infinite suggestiveness of common things, a brooding meditative spirit, are all that the essayist requires to start business with. 
               Alexander Smith, "On the Writing of Essays." 
Dreamthorp:  A Book of Essays Written in the Country, 1863



Last month I took you on a virtual tour of my Poetry Collection. This month I will take you on a virtual tour of my Collection of Essays.  I will present images of book covers and title pages, and even a link or two to essays you can view online.   For brevity's sake, I will omit the posting of publication information.  You can, however, view the catalog listings of all my essay books on Library Thing.


An odd volume of The British Essayists 1808


For years, I craved for the entire forty-five volume set of The British Essayists.  But by the time I found a set in decent shape and at a reasonable price, I no longer wanted it.  I was more than happy with reading my motley collection of essays.


Michel de Montaigne 1533-1592


Francis Bacon 1561-1626


Seventeenth-Century Essayists

Contains essays by Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, John Webster, George Chapman, Edmund Bolten, Henry Peacham, Michael Drayton, Henry Reynolds, Sir William Alexander, Sir John Suckling, and John Milton (end Vol I); Sir William Davenant, Thomas Hobbes, Abraham Cowley, Richard Flecknoe, Sir Robert Howard, Thomas Sprat, Thomas Shadwell, Thomas Rymer, Edward Phillips, Joseph Glanvill, Samuel Butler, Earl of Rochester, Earl of Mulgrave, and the Earl of Roscommon (end Vol II); Robert Wolseley, Sir William Temple, Gerard Langraine, John Dennis, Charles Gibson, William Wotten, Sir Richard Blackmore, William Congreve, Jeremy Collier, and George Granville (end Vol III).

Joseph Addison 1672-1719


Joseph Addison 1672-1719 and Richard Steele 1672-1729
The Tatler and The Guardian complete in one volume



My Very First Book of Essays


Little did I know when I first picked it up off the top of a bookcase in an antique store in a village near RAF Mildenhall, England, and started reading it almost twenty-nine years ago, that this book, an odd volume of the 1806 edition of The Works of Samuel Johnson, would become the cornerstone of not only my Samuel Johnson Collection, but my Essay Collection as well.

Samuel Johnson 1709-1784


Several weeks later, at a book fair in Long Melford, I bought a 1776 edition of The Rambler.



And then more SJ essay books. . .





And finally, about ten years ago, I acquired Johnson's Works from Mike Slicker at his Lighthouse Books in St. Petersburg, Fl.



Francis Jeffrey 1773-1850
Modern British Essayists Series


Charles Lamb 1775-1834


William Hazlitt 1778-1830


Leigh Hunt 1784-1859

Men, Women, and Books; A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs From His Uncollected Prose Writings by Leigh Hunt (1st Amer. & 1st Eng. Eds.)


Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881

Four of the five books were published by Chapman & Hall, and the other in a similar binding design by Chatto & Windus (On the Choice of  Books).  The Chapman & Hall books have title pages dated from 1831 to 1850, but they contain publisher inserts listing books first published in the 1870s.  The Chatto & Windus book is dated 1878.

Jonathan Dymond 1796-1828

Acquired while I was on a Philosophy kick.  The complete title is Essays on the Principles of Morality, and of the Private and Political Rights and Obligations of Mankind by Jonathan Dymond.

Thomas Babington Macaulay 1800-1859


Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882



James Anthony Froude 1818-1894


Alexander Smith 1830-1867


Dreamthorp:  A Book of Essays Written in the Country.  First published in 1863.  You can read these essays on google books. My favorites are "A Shelf in My Book Case" and "On the Writing of Essays." 

Austin Dobson 1840-1921


Alice Meynell 1847-1922


Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894

 I wrote about Will H. Low's copy of Across the Plains and Other Memories and Essays,  also by RLS, in my January 2013 blog post, "Memories of Things Experienced and Things Missed."



Adrian Joline 1850-1912


Augustine Birrell 1850-1933

In Feb 2013, I wrote about the provenance history of another book written by Augustine Birrell. Click on the title below to view my post.

Res Judicatæ.


Oscar Wilde 1854-1900


Agnes Repplier 1855-1950


Logan Pearsall Smith 1865-1946

First American Edition of Trivia.  No. 82 of 100 copies printed by Doubleday, Page and Company.  Signed by the author.
                   

I have a manuscript copy of a short piece (click to view) Logan Pearsall Smith wrote which appeared in More Trivia and then in All Trivia.



Max Beerbohm 1872-1956


Clarence Day 1874-1935


T. S. Eliot 1888-1965


Aldous Huxley 1894-1963


Russell Brain 1895-1966


Mary Hyde Eccles 1912-2003




The English Essayists:  A Comprehensive Selection From the Works of the Great Essayists, From Lord Bacon to John Ruskin, With Introduction, Biographical Notices, and Critical Notes compiled and arranged by Robert Cochrane.  Prize Binding Awarded 1913






If this is "a book of English Essays," then why is one of the 41 essays written by Edgar Allen Poe, and another written by James Russell Lowell?




Sixteen essays by fifteen American essayists (Lowell wrote two essays).



The second edition of a college text book that went through five editions.



No. 653 of Everyman's Library.  One hundred English essays from Caxton to Belloc.




A most interesting book about six different types of essays and the essayists who wrote them.  You can read it here on Google Books.

And this concludes the virtual tour of my Essay Collection.  For brevity purposes, I have omitted the display of scholarly essays about Samuel Johnson and William Shakespeare.  I have omitted the display of more than a few anecdotal essays in my Books About Books Collection.  And I have omitted the display of essays written by living authors.  You can, however, view the listings of all my books on Library Thing.