Fine Books & Manuscripts

SHERIDAN, Richard Brinsley Butler (1751–1816). The Critic; or, A Tragedy Rehearsed. London: printed for T. Beckett, 1781. 8vo (225 x 137 mm). Half–title, engraved title. Later wrappers; folding chemise with gilt titling. (Occasional spotting to text, lacking the rare final advertisement leaf). Provenance: Edward Francis Carry (bookplate in chemise; businessman and president of the Pullman Company in Chicago). FIRST EDITION WITH THE RARE HALF–TITLE, with all points list in Todd’s Book Collector. In Williams’ Seven Eighteenth–Century Bibliographies, the author states that “copies with the half–title are very rare indeed” … and that almost all copies lack the half–title leaf. “In my opinion it is impossible to tell the first edition of this book, when it lacks the half–title, from incomplete copies of several subsequent editions”. Williams, pp. 222–223. From the private library of a prominent Chicago collector, part II.