Beschreibung:

Johnson (Charles). A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street Robbers, &c. from the famous Sir John Falstaff in the Reign of K. Henry IV, 1399 to 1733. To which is added a Genuine Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the most Notorious Pyrates. Interspersed with diverting Tales, and pleasant Songs, printed for and sold by Olive Payne, 1736, A-6K2: title, single leaf of introduction, 3-484, unnumbered index leaf at end, 26 engraved plates (including frontispiece) by Basire, Bowles, Toms, Pritchard and Atkins after Joseph Nicholls and William Jett, title printed in red and black, wide-margined copy, sheet size 37.5 x 24.5 cm (14.75 x 9.6 ins), occasional light spot to margins (generally a very good, clean copy), all edges gilt, gilt ruling to inside covers, gilt-decoration to edges of covers, fine early-19th-century full straight-grained brown morocco gilt by Fairbairn & Armstrong, with binder’s stamp to gutter of inside front cover, oval coat-of-arms of George Agar Ellis to centre of each cover, additional bookplates of Theodore Williams, Charles George Milnes Gaskell and Cortlandt F. Bishop to front pastedown and front endpaper, and engraved bookplate of Ellis & Smith Print Sellers, Romney House, 16B Grafton Street, London to front endpaper, some light spotting to covers, joints rubbed and with some light wear (upper joint tender and cracking at foot), folio (Qty: 1) Provenance: Reverend Theodore Williams (1785-1826). His ‘Splendid and Valuable Library’ was sold over 15 days in April 1827 by Stewart, Wheatley & Adlard. Honourable George Agar Ellis, 1st Baron Dover (1797–1833). Charles George Milnes Gaskell (1842–1919), English lawyer and Liberal Party politician. Cortlandt Field Bishop (1870–1935), American pioneer aviator and book collector. ESTC T112552; NMM IV 275; Sabin 36195. Nothing is known of the author Captain Charles Johnson, whose name is thus generally regarded as a pseudonym. The work has been attributed to Daniel Defoe, although this was rejected most recently by P. N. Furbank & W. R. Owens (Defoe De-Attributions, 1995, 458). Arne Bialuschewski argues that there is significant evidence that A General History was written by Nathaniel Mist, a sailor, printer and journalist of the early eighteenth century, who also employed Defoe to work on the publication of his Weekly Journal: or, Saturday’s Post. The 1724 first edition was registered with the Stationers Company on 24 June ‘for Nathaniel Mist’.(See Daniel Defoe, Nathaniel Mist, and the General History of the Pyrates, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America ,volume 98, number 1, March 2004, pp. 21-38). Adapted from two earlier collections, Alexander Smith’s History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highwaymen (1714), and Charles Johnson’s own General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (1724), the present work provides the best information on the lives and careers of some of the most famous pirates of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, including Jonathan Wild, Jack Sheppard, Edward 'Blackbeard' Teach, Anne Bonny, and Calico Jack, and displays an accurate knowledge of both sea language and the pirate code. Attractive gilt extra binding by Fairbairn & Armstrong, who dissolved their bookbinding business in 1824.