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"Love, Like Death, Levels All Distinctions" - Addison

[COMBE, WILLIAM].

Original Love-Letters, Between a Lady of Quality and a Person of Inferior Station.

Place and Imprint: London: Printed for J. Bew, 1784.
Edition: First edition.
Bibliographical References: ESTC N11038; Garside, Raven and Shöwerling 1784:14; NCBEL II, 648; and see Doctor Syntax, A Silhouette of William Combe, Esq., by Harlan Hamilton (Kent State, 1969).
Condition: Edges a little rubbed; fine copy in contemporary state.
Book ID: 28841

Physical Description

2 vols in 1, small 8vo, contemporary speckled calf, red morocco spine label, gilt rules and lettering. With half-titles.

Comments

A rare novel by prolific writer, satirist, comic poet and imitator, William Combe (1742-1823), written under the guise of being authentic letters between a man of low social status and a woman of the aristocracy - the epistolary tale of an unconventional romance that under normal circumstances could not possibly result in marriage. The ruse did not fool the critics, who recognized it for being fiction. William Combe, who later wrote comic poems under his famous pseudonym Dr. Syntax, was one of the more interesting and inventive writers of his generation, though he is generally perceived of as a "hack writer." Of the over 50 titles attributed to him in NCBEL (and there are probably more than are known), all were written either anonymously or under a pseudonym; Combe never allowed his name on a printed title-page or signed his name to any work, that is recorded. Joseph Addison was a favorite author of Combe's and the title-page of Original Love-Letters bears his epigraph "Love, Like Death, Levels All Distinctions"

Price: $1,750.00