THE DEFINITIVE TEXT OF GULLIVER
SWIFT, Jonathan.
The Works of J. S, D. D, D. S. P. D. in four Volumes … In this Edition are great Alterations and Additions; and likewise many Pieces in each Volume, never before published.
Dublin: Printed by and for George Faulkner, Printer and Bookseller … 1735.
Four vols, 12mo. in sixes, with a frontispiece to each volume, and the four maps and two plans in volume III (Gulliver); title-page, C5-6 and M1-2 in volume IV are cancels (as usual); mild dampstains to first few leaves of volume III, else a very good copy in contemporary calf, spines gilt, gilt edges, front joints cracking (that of volume IV nearly detached); early ownership signatures of Mrs. Mann.
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The Works of J. S, D. D, D. S. P. D. in four Volumes … In this Edition are great Alterations and Additions; and likewise many Pieces in each Volume, never before published.
First 12mo. edition of the first collected Works of Swift, preceded by octavo edition earlier in the year. Here the chronological arrangement in volumes I and II has been altered and one piece, ‘Prometheus’ (a later insertion), moved from volume IV to its correct place in volume II.
Faulkner’s editions of the Works were of great importance, including the first printing of 52 poems in volume II, two new ‘Drapier’s Letters’ in Volume IV, and most importantly the the definitive text of Gulliver’s Travels in volume III. Motte’s ‘basely mangled and abused’ editions of 1726 had annoyed Swift, and here he took pains to restore all the passages that had previously been altered or omitted.
A fifth and sixth volume appeared in 1738, and further continuations would eventually take the collection to twenty volumes by 1769, but the present four volume collection is complete in itself. The 12mo. edition is far scarcer than the 8vo. Of the two dozen copies listed in ESTC, at least six lack one or more volumes.
Teerink-Scouten 49.
