The State Dunces. Inscribed to Mr. Pope

London: W. Dickenson in Witch Street, 1733. First Edition. Folio. 32.5cm. Disbound, with slight residual crust of old calf to spine region. 18pp. Some old ink spots to title page, which effectively comprises the front wrap, strong and durable, toning to the extremities of both outer wraps and a little internal thumbing, otherwise clean and fresh, woodcut head and tailpieces, luxuriously wide margins. A very good, long disbound example of a well-aimed piece of 18th century satire.

A vastly Popean excoriating satire of the Whig government of the 1830's under Robert Walpole, James Ralph, William Stanhope as Secretary of State, George Byng as First Lord of The Admiralty, and a host of other aristocratic pillars of the British aristocratic system. Written in full flow as faux-Pope, Whitehead, with full reference to The Dunciad and wielding the righteous wrath of a breakfast table diplomat under full sail, tears into the sitting government and bemoans with Pope how nothing has changed since the last crop of dunces. A successful part II was published in the same year, and the two are often found bound together, this copy comprises only part I. Whitehead's uncanny ability to ape Popean epic actually made him something of a living during the 1830's-40's, allowing him to pen political and social satire like a Temu Alexander Pope, but available at Witch Street prices. Foxon gives priority to this one which also contains 24 lines eliminated in the others.This was the poem that Whitehead sold for an advance of ten guineas, provoking Johnson to demand the same for London in 1738. Foxon W426; ESTC T48572.