1763 THE WORLD AN 18th CENTURY ENGLISH PAPER IN 4 VOLS

THE
WORLD
BY
ADAM FITZ-ADAM

A NEW EDITION

The World, was published weekly for four years, from  January 1753 to December 1756, by the bookseller Robert Dodsley 1703-1764 describing itself as a ‘paper’ rather than a ‘magazine’. Each week’s edition comprised a single essay of about 1500 words,  The aim, as the editor wrote in the opening number, was to “ridicule, with novelty and good-humour, the fashions, follies, vices and absurdities of that part of the human species that calls itself the World, and to trace it through all its business, pleasures and amusements”, a return to a  practice of essay-writing, initiated by Steele and Addison in The Tatler and The Spectator in the earlier part of the century.
Supposedly written by Adam Fitz-Adam the pseudonym of  Dodsley and his  general editor, the playwright Edward Moore 1712-1757, Moore wrote 62 of the 209 numbers,  Philip Stanhope, the Earl of Chesterfield, contributed 23 essays, Richard Owen Cambridge 20, Horace Walpole 9,  Soame Jenyns 5,  John Boyle Earl of Cork and Orrery 4. Others who contributed included J. Tilson, Edward Lovibond, Richard Berenger, Sir James Marriot and the Poet Laureate, William Whitehead.
This is one of the early editions in book form, a 4 volume set with a total of over 1,300 pages. Each volume has its own title page, different dedication pages, and index pages, and the last volume includes a 3 page list of the contributors to the paper.

On the fixed front endpaper of all volumes is the armorial bookplate of William Copeland, and on the rear of the title page of all of the volumes, the armorial bookplate of William Hopkins.

Condition
Original 18th century full leather bindings, spines with raised bands and gilt tooled decorations, marbled endpapers, marbled paper edges, leather has some wear with slight loss to tops/tails of spines, some hinges are weak with some glue strengthening, lacking spine title labels, pages are clean, all complete.
Size of each volume is 7 by 4¼ inches

FRONT BOARDS

REAR BOARDS

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