Antiquates Limited - Logo

UNRECORDED EDITION OF A DEFINING RADICAL TEXT

GODWIN, William. An enquiry concerning political justice, and its influence on general virtue and happiness.

London. Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, Pater-noster Row, 1793.
8vo. In two volumes. xiii, [23], 411, [1]; [22], 424pp. Contemporary gilt-tooled tree calf. Heavily worn, with chipping and loss to spines, corners, boards detached. Title leaf of Vol. I. detached, and certainly, like that that of Vol. II, originally a cancel. Some staining to text, with the early ink inscription of Walter Young to head of the first page of contents of both volumes. Preserved within a modern cloth drop-back folding box, gilt-tooled morocco lettering-piece, lightly worn and with a broken strap, bearing the ownership inscription and bibliographical notes of William St. Clair, dated January 1986.
A curious and otherwise apparently unrecorded octavo edition, from the library of William St. Clair of political writer and novelist William Godwin's (1756-1836) significant exposition of democracy, and nascent socialist and anarchist philosophy, comprising the sheets of the Dublin pirate edition, and cancel title pages bearing the Robinson imprint.

Arguably more radical a critique of the British constitution than Paine's Rights of man (London, 1791), and written in the weeks preceding the outbreak of war with France in 1793 - and swiftly published - the Cabinet unsurprisingly discussed prosecuting Godwin for seditious libel after the appearance of the first edition in March 1793. Its composition in more sober tones, and presentation in the costlier quarto format, priced at £1 16s and published by the Robinsons, likely saved Godwin from such a fate, with Pitt, then Prime Minister, commenting that 'a three guinea book could never do much harm among those who had not three shillings to spare'. Whilst Godwin may not have presented the same political risks as Paine, his work was popular, especially amongst progressive literary circles; it was pirated by White in Ireland by Luke Wight in octavo format, and completed three distinct authorised London editions by 1798.

As far as we can see this edition is unrecorded in the usual databases; the titles, albeit cancels, are most certainly printed in letterpress, and contemporary to the 1790s. Evidently once a cherished item within the extensive library of William St. Clair (1937-2021), British scholar and senior civil servant, notable as the author of The Godwins and the Shelleys, The Biography of a Family (1989) and The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (2004), the bibliographical note inscribed to the inside of the cloth folding-box reads as follows:

'Unrecorded edition. Dublin sheets of 1st edition with cancel title page of Robinson of London. I have never seen or heard of another copy. If the title page is genuine, Robinson may have bought sheets from White with the intention of producing an 8vo edition quickly after the success of the explosive 4to. Heirs and successors, do not rebind.'

In The Godwins and the Shelleys, The Biography of a Family, St. Clair went further than his supposition of 1986, noting with more certainty that when 'the initial demand was at its height, Robinson bought octavo sheets from the Dublin printer and sold them in London under his own imprint'.
Not in ESTC.
£ 3,250.00 Antiquates Ref: 26138