Pylades and Corinna

Full title: Pylades and Corinna: or, Memoirs of the Lives, Amours, and Writings of Richard Gwinnett Esq; Of Great Shurdington in Gloucestershire; and Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas Jun[io]r Of Great Russel Street, Bloomsbury. Containing, The Letters and other Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Verse, which passed between them during a Courtship of above Sixteen Years. Faithfully published from their Original Manuscripts. Attested By Sir Edward Northey, Knight. To which is prefixed, The Life of Corrina. Written by Her self.

First of 2 volumes in 8vo. f. [1] (blank), [1] (plates), pp. [ii], iii-xi, [vi], [ii], iii-lxxx, 287, [1], f. [1] (blank). Marbled calf. Gilt red panel on spine, gilt boards' edges. Elevated bars on spine. Includes head- and tailpieces. Full-page engraved plate facing title page, with title "Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas. Ætat: XXX." and signature: "G. King ab Originali sculpsit."

First edition of this novelistic memoir by Richard Gwinnett (1665-1717) and his long-term fiancée Elizabeth Thomas (1675-1731). Volume 2 has the title The Honourable Lovers; or, The Second and Last Volume of Pylades and Corinna; appended to that volume is The Country ’Squire; or, A Christmas Gambol, a Comedy Written by Pylades. Volume 1 includes ‘A conversation between Psalmanazaar the Formosan, and some ladies, with several curious particulars not in his book.’ The mysterious French refugee ‘George Psalmanazar,’ whose true name has never been discovered, and who claimed to be a native of the then-unfamiliar island of Formosa was the inventor of the imaginary ‘Formosan’ language and alphabet. He took the English readership by storm with his almost entirely imaginative History of Formosa (1704, revised in 1705 with the addition of lurid cannibal details: see Bib# 552132/Fr# 666 and Bib# 1855507/Fr# 667 in this collection). See F.J. Foley, The great Formosan impostor. St Louis, 1968, pp. 118 ff; ESTC, T146622.

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