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Lot 124
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF THE SECOND PART, EXCEEDINGLY RARE. BUNYAN, JOHN. 1628-1688. The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come.... Boston, N.E., Printed by John Draper for Thomas Fleet, 1744.
31 March – 8 April 2025, 12:00 EDT
Online, New YorkSold for US$38,400 inc. premium
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FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF THE SECOND PART, EXCEEDINGLY RARE.
BUNYAN, JOHN. 1628-1688. The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come.... Boston, N.E., Printed by John Draper for Thomas Fleet, 1744. 8vo (151 x 88 mm). 4 wood-engraved plates. 19th-century cloth, decorated in blind, spine lettered in gilt. Chip to lower corner leaf C1, lower margin of K3, without text loss; with final two blanks.
Provenance: George Brinley (his booklabel), sold, his sale, Part 4, George A. Leavitt & Co, New York, November 15-18, 1886, lot 7460); Newell Ormsbee Mason (bookplate to front fly).
THE BRINLEY COPY OF THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, clean and complete with all 4 engravings. "... there's no book in English, apart from the Bible, to equal Bunyan's masterpiece for the range of its readership, or its influence on writers as diverse as William Hogarth, C. S. Lewis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, George Bernard Shaw, William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and Enid Blyton" (Robert McCrum, "The 100 best novels: No 1 – The Pilgrim's Progress," The Guardian, 2013.
The first part was published in 1678, with the second part appearing in London in 1684. By the end of the first year of publication 10,000 copies had been struck off ... by 1680, 6 pirated editions were also in circulation, and it has now been translated into more than 147 languages. With Rights of Man, it is considered the foundation text of the English working-class movement.
Moreover, the effect of Pilgrim's Progress on the American identity was profound. As Holland Cotter observed, "It's narrative of a religious journey through the wilderness to stake a claim on a piece of Paradise was part of the American foundation myth, one of struggle and entitlement, in which ideas of divine mission, national destiny and nostalgia for the past merged." It's popularity in America in the 19th-century is unparalleled, and it had profound influence in American abolitionist circles.
Any first edition of Pilgrim's Progress is rare. We trace no complete copy of this second part at auction since 1919. Furthermore, this fine copy is from the library of George Brinley, one of the most distinguished of American libraries, who Sabin notes in his entry on the first American edition of the first volume (Sabin 62847) held the only known copy of that edition, now at the Boston Public Library (copies have been identified at the Huntington and a fragment at the AAS). An intersection of rarity and desirability not likely to be encountered again on this title. Evans 5351. Sabin 62847 (note).
Provenance: George Brinley (his booklabel), sold, his sale, Part 4, George A. Leavitt & Co, New York, November 15-18, 1886, lot 7460); Newell Ormsbee Mason (bookplate to front fly).
THE BRINLEY COPY OF THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, clean and complete with all 4 engravings. "... there's no book in English, apart from the Bible, to equal Bunyan's masterpiece for the range of its readership, or its influence on writers as diverse as William Hogarth, C. S. Lewis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, George Bernard Shaw, William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and Enid Blyton" (Robert McCrum, "The 100 best novels: No 1 – The Pilgrim's Progress," The Guardian, 2013.
The first part was published in 1678, with the second part appearing in London in 1684. By the end of the first year of publication 10,000 copies had been struck off ... by 1680, 6 pirated editions were also in circulation, and it has now been translated into more than 147 languages. With Rights of Man, it is considered the foundation text of the English working-class movement.
Moreover, the effect of Pilgrim's Progress on the American identity was profound. As Holland Cotter observed, "It's narrative of a religious journey through the wilderness to stake a claim on a piece of Paradise was part of the American foundation myth, one of struggle and entitlement, in which ideas of divine mission, national destiny and nostalgia for the past merged." It's popularity in America in the 19th-century is unparalleled, and it had profound influence in American abolitionist circles.
Any first edition of Pilgrim's Progress is rare. We trace no complete copy of this second part at auction since 1919. Furthermore, this fine copy is from the library of George Brinley, one of the most distinguished of American libraries, who Sabin notes in his entry on the first American edition of the first volume (Sabin 62847) held the only known copy of that edition, now at the Boston Public Library (copies have been identified at the Huntington and a fragment at the AAS). An intersection of rarity and desirability not likely to be encountered again on this title. Evans 5351. Sabin 62847 (note).