This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/18/2024
[CHARLES I, KING OF ENGLAND (1600-1649)]. [GAUDEN, John (ca. 1571-1662)]. Eikon Basilike [in Greek]. The Pourtraicuture of his Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings. [London: Printed for Richard Royston], 1648. 8vo. With fold-out engraved frontispiece by William Marshall of Charles I in religious ecstasy. Nineteenth-century full black levant morocco, spine lettered in gilt in compartments, five raised bands, gilt board edges and turn-ins, black cloth endleaves, later blanks, top edge gilt (joints rubbed, some rubbing to corners, frontispiece with a few tears, additional creases, title-page and first leaf of Contents with repaired tears, pp. 255-267 faded but readable). FIRST EDITION, second issue (without publisher’s imprint on title-page, but with the mis-paginations on signature G). This famous Royalist publication was supposedly the autobiography of Charles I (who had just been executed) but was most likely written by John Gauden. It was so controversial that Parliament commissioned a response written by no less than John Milton (1608-1674, his book Eikonoklastes), and Milton was also the first to doubt that Charles I was the author of Eikon Basilike. Wing E268.