Dibdin

1831 · Best.-Nr. BIBLIO-59137 — Longman Rees Orme Brown and Green London first edition 1831. 6 volumes later blue half-calf and cloth gilt spine decoration and red leather title-panels 16mo 18 cm. various paginations tissue-guarded frontispiece portraits. Scarce Rare Book Hub has no auction record since 1954 and that for a supposed '1832' edition. An attractive collection of sermons of which Dibdin wrote in a letter "My hope & object is to fight Methodism with my right hand and radicalism with my left - by the influence of the excellent Sermons selected." Dibdin contributed the biographical sketches and notes in addition to any editing of the sermons but acknowledged privately that these were really included to protect copyright. Some 40 clerics are represented including several acquaintances of Dibdin e.g. Blomfield D’Oyly Heber Rennell and Sydney Smith. The publication was successful financially with a second edition produced in 1833-35 and Lister notes "Over 4000 sets were sold which is most remarkable in view of the considerable scarcity of the book today". Alas Dibdin's share of the proceeds was insufficient to make much impact on his very poor finances at the time - apart from his other troubles he had expensive costs from defending a libel action he had innocently become involved in. The set is bound without the advertisement leaves or half-titles mentioned in Windle & Pippin otherwise conforming to the pagination of their entry A56a with minor differences Vol III page 2 not numbered Vol IV prelims not numbered. A handsome first edition set slightly rubbed otherwise Very Good with a little faint foxing largely confined to the endpapers. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, London, first edition, 1831 hardcover