SALMAGUNDI; OR, THE WHIM-WHAMS AND OPINIONS OF LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ. AND OTHERS

Book Description

New York: Published by David Longworth, At the Shakespeare Gallery, 1807-1808.. Twenty parts (as described below). The majority untrimmed and sewn in printed wrappers, very good to fine, plus two duplicate parts in printed wrappers. Enclosed in a folding half morocco slipcase (joint broken). The Alfred L. Rose set of Washington Irving's first original literary publication, cowritten with William Irving and James Kirk Paulding, and one of the most bibliographically complex American literary productions of the 19th century, as well as one of the rarest in wrappers. This well- known set offers fifteen of the twenty parts in the first edition in wrappers, along with other numbers in wrappers in later printings and variants, and was consulted by Langfeld and BAL in the course of the still- evolving bibliographic study of this work. The front wrapper of the second number of this set is featured as plate II in Langfeld & Blackburn. BAL's analysis of text and wrappers, with its attendant qualifications and hypotheses, and superceding Langfeld & Blackburn's analysis, as well as that in Wilson's catalogue, has been followed below. ^Part 1. Copy A.: Second edition, BAL's wrapper B. Minor tears to spine at stitching. ^Part 1. Copy B.: Fourth edition, BAL's wrapper G. Narrow partial split to wrapper spine. ^Part 2. Copy A.: First printing, BAL's wrapper B. Small chip at lower edge of front wrapper toward spine. ^Part 2. Copy B.: Third edition, BAL's wrapper G. ^Part 3. First printing, BAL's wrapper B. Very early light ink calculations toward top edge of front wrapper. ^Part 4. Second edition, BAL's wrapper G. Narrow partial split to spine of wrapper. ^Part 5. First edition, second state of text, BAL's wrapper D. ^Part 6. First edition, leaf B in setting B (state A), no priority, BAL's wrapper D. ^Part 7. First edition, second state, BAL's wrapper D. ^Part 8. First edition, first state of the text, first state of the portrait (uncommon thus), BAL's wrapper E. ^Part 9. First edition, BAL's wrapper E. ^Part 10. First edition, presumed first state of the imprint, BAL's wrapper F. Old strengthening to foredge of two leaves. ^Part 11. First edition, BAL's lst(?) state of 214:5, wrapper F. ^Part 12. First edition. Untrimmed but lacking wrappers. Old repairs to corners and edges of a few leaves, a few old ink spots. ^Part 13. First edition, lacks front wrapper but rear wrapper BAL's O, some old repairs at extremities of leaves. ^Part 14. First edition, wrapper J. ^Part 15. First edition, lst(?) state without imprint on p.234. BAL's wrapper L(a). ^Part 16. First edition, first state, BAL's wrapper M. ^Part 17. First edition, second state of 350:22, BAL's wrapper M. ^Part 18. First edition, first state of p.373, and 2nd state of 374, BAL's wrapper N. Old repair to marginal tear in first leaf. ^Part 19. First edition, BAL's wrapper O. Early ink note "No. 19" on front wrapper. ^Part 20. First edition, second state. Trimmed, no wrappers, and without the inserted title-leaf and table for Vol. II. ^SALMAGUNDI in parts, in wrappers, is one of the classic tests of collectors' perseverance. The number of extant sets in wrappers is small, and of those sets, those with each number in the first edition is considerably smaller. Carroll Wilson proclaimed his set (put together beginning with nine parts from the Braislin collection) the only perfect set, as it contained the then only known uncut copy of the first printing of part one in wrappers. Accompanying this set is a manuscript account by Alfred Rose of an evening he, Carroll Wilson, and William Langfeld spent collating their respective sets, an occasion upon which Rose's set produced the hitherto unnoticed variant wrappers without the copyright notice and with the dated imprint (present on parts 1, 2 and 3). This form of the wrapper was taken to be the actual first printing of the wrapper, a form which was discarded due to the need to conform to copyright requirements and then used accidentally. Wilson challenged the priority of this form of the wrapper in the description of his set in his THIRTEEN AUTHOR COLLECTIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, but BAL affords these wrappers priority (forms 1 and 2 of the front wrapper), all the while noting that the original binders may have used whatever wrappers came to hand when binding up parts. BAL details twenty permutations and combinations of front, rear and inner wrapper forms, based on six forms of the front wrapper; some of these twenty forms evolved only as the series progressed, and obviously only properly appear on later numbers, or later printings of those numbers. From the entire field of individual parts BAL consulted in order to arrive at their findings, a total of only fourteen individual examples featured one or the other of the two variants of this form of the front wrapper, three of which are present here. The paucity of copies of numbers in parts, untrimmed in wrappers, leads BAL to comment that "the final [definitive] collation of SALMAGUNDI has not been achieved." ^We note the sale at auction of only one complete set of SALMAGUNDI in parts and wrappers, and that with the first number lacking the rear wrapper, with first, mixed and variant states of the first printing texts thoughout. It was one of two nearly complete sets assembled by David Randall over a span of many years, and sold for $11,000 in 1971. It is described and illustrated in the private catalogue of the Behrman collection, and is now at Princeton. Randall's other set is at the Lilly. As with so many other bibliographic matters, David Randall's memoir, DUKEDOM LARGE ENOUGH (1969) sheds interesting light on copies of SALMAGUNDI in wrappers: "Some idea of their rarity may be gleaned from the fact that I know of only a handful of scattered parts ever being in the trade in my time, and there has been a total of exactly none, except Braislin's nine [purchased by Randall at Braislin's sale in 1937, lot 339, wherein this set is cited], sold at auction in the past fifty years." The Martin sale did not include a set (or the title in any form), and the Stockhausen collection included only a two volume set bound up from parts, without wrappers. None of the distinguished First Books catalogues of the last twenty-five years included a set in wrappers, though Seven Gables' MORE FIRST BOOKS (1972) offered a set bound up from parts, without wrappers, first, second, third and mixed states, for $2,250. Apart from the parts then in Randall's hands, this is the only privately owned set recorded by BAL. With the majority of the known sets in wrappers in institutional collections, it would seem unlikely that a more satisfactory set than this may be acquired. BAL 10097. WILSON I, pp.157-60. LANGFELD & BLACKBURN, pp.5-11. Randall, DUKEDOM LARGE ENOUGH, p.181.

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