The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Together With an Historical View of the Affairs of Ireland, Now for the First Time Carefully Printed from the Original MS Preserved in the Bodleian Library. To Which are Subjoined the Notes of Bishop Warburton. 7 vols (set)

Description

Original full tan calf, double gilt fillets framing boards, decorated at corners with small tools. Raised bands, ornate gilt decor, one black gilt and one red gilt label per spine. Gilt decor to board edges, blind decor to turn ins. Cracking to front board of vol. V over front hinge. Mild wear to board edges and corners, rubbing to spines. Light marking to boards and minor stripping to leather. Varnish to spines and to some board corners. 8vos (16 x 24.1cm). All edges marbled. Marbled endpapers. Cracking or starting to all front endpapers and most rear at gutters, but hardly visible, hinges almost all sound. Front hinge of vol. VII slightly slack: backstrip just starting to lift at base. Cloth tape repair to gutters at rear endpapers and immediately after title page in vol. V, with pp. preceding t.p. and front free endpaper pasted down at gutter for c. 1 cm. Armorial bookplate of Arthur Wing to inside front board of all vols (perhaps Arthur Wing, d. 1873, Commander in the Royal Navy). Tiny bookseller’s label to inside front board of vol. I. Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion was begun between 1646 and 1648 during the Civil War itself, while Hyde, a close advisor to both Charles I and Charles II, was in exile as a royalist. The Restoration saw Hyde returned to England and rising to power as Lord Chancellor, before he fell from favour and was once again exiled. In his later years, he wrote an autobiography which was then combined with the earlier version of the History to produce his History of the Rebellion. The History was hugely successful on its first publication in 1702-04: ‘the most sophisticated and finely balanced history yet written in English (or written for a long time afterwards)’, it is still remarkable as ‘a distinctive work of art based on a highly wrought style, a forensic dissection of character and issue, and a sense of the depth of individuals’ moral responsibility for their actions’ (ODNB). This 1849 edition is the culmination of a long process of refinement by Oxford University Press. Clarendon’s son had granted the copyright of the History to Oxford University, on condition that the text could only be printed by the OUP. As such, ‘Clarendon’s text, dignified as it was by a legal status that brought it close to the bible privilege, was treated with a reverence normally reserved for sacred or classical texts, and was subject to collation and recollation’ (Eliot (ed.), 2013, The History of Oxford University Press: Volume II: 1780 to 1896, p. 561). The process saw the first edition to draw on the original MS published in 1829 under the editorship of Bulkeley Bandinel, then Bodley’s Librarian, with new revised editions in 1840 and 1843. This 1849 edition builds on these editions in light of a ‘fresh collation of the MS.’, ‘so as to allow a hope to be entertained that nothing now has been left for the diligence of a future editor to discover’ (Advertisement, vol. I, p. iv). A handsome solid set. Robust packaging. Tracking can be added to overseas orders on request. Used books are exempt from USA tariffs.