First Lewis/Roper Edition of "The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore"
Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore, Knt. Lord High-Chancellor of England, In the Reign of K. Henry the Viiith. Written by William Rooper, Esq; Prothonotary of the King's Bench: To Which is added from Sir Thomas's English Works some Letters of His, &c. referred to in the Account of his Life.
London: Printed for Thomas Page and William Mount, 1728.
ROPER, William. The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore, Knt. Lord High-Chancellor of England, In the Reign of K. Henry the Viiith. Written by William Rooper, Esq; Prothonotary of the King's Bench: To Which is added from Sir Thomas's English Works some Letters of His, &c. referred to in the Account of his Life. London: Printed for Thomas Page and William Mount, 1728.
Full Description:
[MORE, Sir Thomas, Association]. ROPER, William. LEWIS, J., Editor. The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore, Knt. Lord High-Chancellor of England, In the Reign of K. Henry the Viiith. Written by William Rooper, Esq; Prothonotary of the King's Bench: To Which is added from Sir Thomas's English Works some Letters of His, &c. referred to in the Account of his Life. London: Printed for Thomas Page and William Mount, 1728.
First Lewis/Roper edition. Roper first published this work in 1626 as ’The mirrour of vertue in worldly greatnes’ (No copy of this title as auction sine 1965). In Dibdin’s Biography of Sir Thomas More, he refers to the 1729 Roper/Lewis edition as being the first edition thus and calls it “rather scarce”, our present copy is 1728. The 1729 copy Preface is signed by Lewis, whereas the 1728 edition is not. ESTC lists only one copy in the United States of this 1728 edition and we could find no other copies at auction. Octavo (8 1/2 x 5 inches; 217 x 127 mm). [2, blank], 184, [8, index and errata], [2, blank] pp. With a folding chart of Roper's family tree. Engraved head and tail pieces and initials.
Contemporary full speckled calf. Boards ruled in gilt. Spine stamped in gilt. Red morocco spine label, lettered in gilt. Hinges and spine with repairs. Previous early ink signatures on front endpapers and a few matching early ink notations in the text. Overall a very good copy.
William Roper is reputedly the earliest personal biography in the English language. He was also More's son-in-law having married his eldest and favorite daughter Margaret. "Roper's Life of More... is an attractive personal memoir, marked by candour, modesty, and strong loyalty. It is based explicitly on personal recollection, which, however, sometimes needs correction. Roper's portrait of More as a model lord chancellor has been modified in detail by later scholarship, and there is a serious anachronism in his last paragraph (fully discussed by R. W. Chambers in Harpsfield, 353-5) . But the book remains an English classic, the earliest personal biography in the language. It has also left its mark on all subsequent writing on More." (Oxford DNB).
"The Mirrour of Vertue in Worldly Greatnes, or The Life of Sir Thomas More, Knight, sometime Lord Chancellor of England, was first imprinted in the year 1626, at Paris, according to the title-page, though it has been suggested, without any definite proof, that the book was not really printed abroad. The author of the Life, William Roper, Sir Thomas More's son-in-law, died in 1578; he had possibly not completed his book at the end of Queen Mary's reign. Before the Life appeared in print the manuscript version had already been utilised by various biographers of Sir Thomas More, notably by Stapleton, whose Tres Thomae appeared at Antwerp in 1588; by Nicholas Harpsfield, whose work is preserved in Harleian Manuscript and by Cresacre More, his great-grandson... Thomas Hearne, the famous antiquary, reprinted William Roper's book in the year 1716, but his text is almost as faulty as that of the editio princeps, though he had better manuscript materials at his disposal he added various readings and emendations at the end of his volume. In 1729 the Rev. John Lewis, the biographer of Wiclif and Caxton, edited the Life from a fairly good mauscript lent him by Mr. Thomas Beake, of Stourmouth, in Kent. " (Preface to the 1905 Edition).
"It was Lewis who found William Roper’s Life of Sir Thomas More in need of careful editing, for no one had attempted to refute the authenticity of the few pirated copies that were in existence, and the Hearn Manuscript of the Life was considered too illegible a document for any scholar’s effort. Lewis...during his stay at Cambridge, found manuscripts other than Hearne’s, and after careful comparisons, he was able in 1729 [this copy 1728] to bring out an edition of Roper’s Life of More that has served all subsequent editors” (Longaker, English Biography p. 196).
ESTC N20566.
HBS 68824.
$7,500.
Price: $7,500.00
Item #68824