THE HERMIT: OR, THE UNPARALLEL'D SUFFERINGS AND SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF MR. PHILIP QUARLL, AN ENGLISHMAN: WHO WAS LATELY DISCOVERED BY MR. DORRINGTON, A BRISTOL MERCHANT, UPON AN UNINHABITED ISLAND IN THE SOUTH-SEA; WHERE HE HAS LIVED ABOVE FIFTY YEARS, WITHOUT ANY HUMAN ASSISTANCE; STILL CONTINUES TO RESIDE, AND WILL NOT COME AWAY..
1780 · London
by [Longueville, Peter]
London, 1780. xii,262pp. 19th-century three-quarter calf and marbled boards. Leather dried and worn, front board nearly detached. Scattered foxing. Else good. Styled "twelfth edition" on the titlepage, originally published in 1727. A popular fictitious voyage relating a British hermit's life on a deserted Pacific island off the coast of Mexico. The story describes Mr. Quarll's early adventures, his escape from a locksmith apprenticeship and subsequent life at sea. He lived quite a free life, and was married to three women simultaneously, a crime for which he received a pardon from Charles II. "Generally considered among the best of the English imitations of ROBINSON CRUSOE, [this work] remained anonymous until Arundell Esdaile...discovered a rare edition of 1727 in which the dedication is signed 'Peter Longueville,' who, according to Esdaile's plausible hypothesis, resented his publisher's alteration of his MS and their invention of Edward Dorrington [as author] and who therefore himself published privately his own edition differing from and denouncing the original...It was first published in chapters in a weekly newspaper, called the PUBLIC INTELLIGENCER, shortly after the appearance of ROBINSON CRUSOE...Later editors often changed the story considerably, but whether Longueville's own version had any influence on these later editions and translations is a subject not yet investigated" - Gove. This edition is not listed in the NUC. Gove, THE IMAGINARY VOYAGE IN PROSE FICTION (1941), pp.262-68. COX II, p.479 (attributed to Dorrington). NEGLEY 1462 (Inventory #: WRCAM15554)