ROGERS, Samuel.
Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers. To which is added Porsoniana.
London: Edward Moxon ... 1856.
8vo., pp. viii, [356], with half-title and eight-page Moxon catalogue dated (January 1856) bound in between the pastedown and the front free endpaper; a very good copy, uncut, in blind stamped plum cloth, spine gilt (slightly faded).
Added to your basket:
Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers. To which is added Porsoniana.
First edition of this mine of contemporary literary gossip. Rogers is among that select group of poets to have declined the laureateship, and his poetry once had an ardent fan in Byron, who saw him as a much needed antidote to the Lake poets. His most durable achievement, however, has proved to be his position in the social life of literary London in the first half of the nineteenth century, his affability and affluence drawing the most sparkling guests to his table for lunch, dinner, and, most famously, breakfast.
You may also be interested in...
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, François, Duc de.
The Memoirs of the Duke de La Rochefoucault. Containing the private Intrigues for obtaining the Regency after the Death of Louis the Thirteenth, King of France, the Wars of Paris, and Guienne, the Imprisonment of the Princes. Cardinal Mazarin’s Letter to Monsieur de Brienne. Articles agreed upon by His Royal Highness and Monsieur le Prince, for the Expulsion of Cardinal Mazarin. An Apologie for the Duke de Beaufort. Memoirs of Monsieur de la Chastre.
First edition in English, translated from Mémoires de M. D.L.R. sur les brigues à la mort de Louys XIII (1662). At court in his earlier years La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) took an active part in the cabals and rivalries that surrounded Richelieu and Louis XIII, and subsequently in the Fronde rebellion against Mazarin. His political activities came to an end after he was wounded in the fighting in Paris in 1652. Living in retirement he began to write his Mémoires, not so much an autobiography as an account of the court intrigues and a portrait of his fellow aristocrats. Mémoires circulated privately among his friends until its unauthorized printing in 1662 brought the author both fame and trouble.