"A RUMBUSTIOUS, AT TIMES SCATOLOGICAL, SATIRE ON BRITISH POLITICAL LIFE": 1769 FIRST EDITION OF SMOLLETT'S HISTORY AND ADVENTURES OF AN ATOM, BEAUTIFULLY BOUND

SMOLLETT, Tobias. The History and Adventures of an Atom. London: Robinson and Roberts, 1749 (i.e., 1769). Two volumes. 12mo, early 20th-century full red morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed together in a custom slipcase. $2200.

First edition, first issue, of this anonymously published satirical novel, very handsomely bound in full morocco-gilt by Francis Bedford.

"If indeed he was author of The History and Adventures of an Atom, published about 1 April 1769, then he must have been working on it in 1768. There is no reference to it in his letters or those of his correspondents, but it was attributed to him in the London Chronicle. With echoes of the humor of Rabelais, it is a rumbustious, at times scatological, satire on British political life, transposed to Japan. It may be that Smollett, sensing that his remaining days were few, revived his vituperative energies to target enemies, including Pitt, Cumberland, Mansfield, and Wilkes. If his, it was a pungent valediction" (ONDB). "A born storyteller, [Smollett] paid little attention to premeditated effects; his narrative and descriptive gifts were sufficient to keep readers keenly interested and amused… For inventiveness and diversity of episode, vivid particularity of detail to the point of caricature and energy of style, Smollett is hardly excelled. He is to the 18th-century novel what Hogarth is to painting—a savage realist with an eye for eccentric character, which he discovers in all classes" (Baugh et al., 961-62). First issue, with misprinted date of "1749" rather than 1769 on title pages. Bound with half titles. Rothschild 1923.

A fine copy, beautifully bound.