PASQUIN, Anthony [i.e. John WILLIAMS].
The Eccentricities of John Edwin, Comedian. Collected from his Manuscripts, and enriched with several hundred original Anecdotes …
London, Printed for J. Strahan … [1791].
2 vols., 8vo., pp. viii, 326; iv, 349, [1], plus final advertisement leaf; engraved vignette of the comedic mask to the title; light offsetting throughout, a few blemishes to the titles, else a very good copy in contemporary half calf, lightly rubbed, chips to two corners of the spine label to vol. I without any loss of lettering, headcaps frayed; contemporary ink ownership inscription to titles.
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The Eccentricities of John Edwin, Comedian. Collected from his Manuscripts, and enriched with several hundred original Anecdotes …
First edition of the earliest biography of the actor and singer John Edwin the elder (1749-1790), written by his friend, John Williams, journalist and author of the satirical collection of verse portraits The Children of Thespis (1786). Williams published both works under the pseudonym ‘Anthony Pasquin’ (Oxford DNB).
Although Edwin is primarily remembered for his comic roles – Dromio in The Comedy of Errors, Touchstone in As You Like It and the original Silvertongue in The Belle’s Stratagem – he took several tragic roles with, less celebrated, comedic effect. One such instance is recalled here: ‘The next character he assumed was Romeo; but for want of a proper side scene, the lady, who enacted Juliet, was under the irksome necessity of delivering her amorous extacies from a ladder … Edwin being then but a sort of novice in making love, and not knowing the delicate customs of Mantua, placed himself too immediately under the fair object of his idolatry, who was obliged in consequence to pay more attention to her petticoats than her author …’ (vol. I, pp. 206-7).
Williams had been a pupil under the engraver and caricaturist Matthew Darly, and many of his works are ‘illustrated with frontispieces and vignettes drawn and/or engraved by him’ (Oxford DNB); the vignette on the title of the present work is probably one such example.
