Goldsmith, Oliver | "Like the BEE ... I would rove from flower to flower"

Goldsmith, Oliver

The Bee: Being Essays on the Most Interesting Subjects. London: Printed for J. Wilkie, 1759.

8vo (175 x 111 mm). Engraved frontispiece, title-page, woodcut head- and tail-pieces; faded holograph annotation to the title-page reading "By ... Goldsmith," foxed, staining and smudging to initial blanks and p. 251, creases and folds to upper corners of last few leaves. In full mottled calf, boards ruled in gilt and with gilt decoration, spine with raised bands in 6 compartments, 2nd compartment with morocco label lettered in gilt, others with repeat gilt motif, morocco label at foot dated in gilt, all edges gilt, inside dentelles gilt; front hinge a bit loose, extremities rubbed, endpapers browned especially at edges.

First edition of Goldsmith's periodical The Bee in book form. The publication had a short run, beginning and ending in 1759, though it was reprinted in 1790. Goldsmith, best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield, states in the introduction, "I intended to pursue no fixed method, so it was impossible to form any regular plan; determined never to be tedious, in order to be logical, wherever pleasure presented, I was resolved to follow. Like the BEE, which I had taken for the title of my paper, I would rove from flower to flower, with seeming inattention, but concealed choice, expatiate over all the beauties of the season, and make my industry my amusement."

REFERENCE

ESTC T135640

PROVENANCE

Walter Thomas Wallace (bookplate to pastedown)