£60
NO. 377 OF 527 COPIES, 8vo. pp. xxvii, [i], 127, [1] + 6 plates. Original quarter dark green cloth, sage green boards, spine lettered direct in gilt, top edge gilt. Boards a little soiled, front board unevenly sunned, a touch of wear to extremities. Numbered in ink to limitation-page.
An early production from Bristol bookseller Douglas Cleverdon (1903-1987), reprinting Farquhar's 1707 comedy with 7 new illustrations by Jean Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), 6 full-page plates and a title-page vignette. This copy is one of the 450 standard issue copies, but from the preferred issue: as the printed publisher's note following the title-page explains, the odd-numbered copies (for Cleverdon to sell in the UK) were withdrawn and reprinted by Walter Lewis at The University Press, Cambridge after Cleverdon was dissatisfied with the quality of the work by the original printer, the Country Life Press in Garden City, New York. The even-numbered copies (for Country Life to distribute in the USA) retain the original, refused sheets.
