Tom Jones - photo 1
Tom Jones - photo 2

Tom Jones

Starting price
$ 3 000
Auction dateClassic
07.12.2022 10:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 859628
Lot 48 | Tom Jones
FIELDING, Henry (1707-1754). The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling. London: A. Millar, 1749.

Fielding's comic masterpiece; the first edition of volumes 1-5 and the second edition of volume 6. Dismissed by a contemporary reviewer as “a motley history of bastardism, fornication, and adultery,” it is now widely regarded as one of the most influential novels in the English language. It was so eagerly received by its first readers that four editions totaling 10,000 copies were called for in less than a year. Although Fielding in Tom Jones “vividly evokes a particular time and place, his true subject, he declares in the opening chapter, is nothing less than ‘HUMAN NATURE’; and his story, to borrow the compliment he paid Cervantes, is ‘the History of the World in general.’” See Battestin, Fielding Companion, p. 195; Cross III, pp. 122 and 316; Grolier English 48; Rothschild 85.

Six volumes, 12mo (164 x 95mm). Errata, blanks, and all cancelled leaves present. Contemporary calf (rebacked with original spines laid down, vol. 2 with chips at head, a little chipping along joints, vol. 3 rear board loose). Provenance: Pemberton (ownership inscription in vols 2-5) – Robert Dalrymple Horn Elphinstone (bookplates).
Place of origin:United Kingdom
Auction house category:Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
20 Rockefeller Plaza
10020 New York
USA
Preview
23.11.2022 – 07.12.2022
Phone +1 212 636 2000
Fax +1 212 636 4930
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