Books

London: John Stockdale, 1790. Hardcover. Very Good. Stothard. A handsome eighteenth-century edition of Robinson Crusoe in an early Bayntun binding. Accompanied by a description of the book on the letterhead of the early twentieth-century bookseller Harry F. Marks. Marks describes it as a "SUPERB COPY OF ROBINSON CRUSOE... Engraved titles and vignettes and 15 beautiful steel engravings by Medland from designs by Stothard. 2 Vols., royal 8vo., handsome full polished sprinkled calf, panel sides, blind tooling, gilt fillet borders, extra gilt backs, inside dentelles, gilt edges, by Bayntun. Enclosed in fleece-lined slip case." With George Chalmer's "Life of Daniel Defoe". In the century since Marks wrote his description there have been minor scuffs to the front board of volume II and the hinges have begun to start. They have been professionally repaired and strengthened. At the advice of a conservator the volumes are no longer stored in the fleece-lined slip case. Loss to the head…

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, is one of the earliest and most influential novels in the history of English literature. It is a fictional autobiography of the title character, a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story is widely perceived as a comment on the British Imperialism of the age and the emerging ideology of the 'self-made man', and it reflects on the author's vast array of experiences.