THE ADVENTURES OF RODERICK RANDOM. In two volumes. The second edition.

[SMOLLETT, Tobias George.]

Editore: London: printed for J. Osborn in Pater-noster-Row, 1748

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Two volumes, 12mo, pp. xxiii, [i], 324; xii, 156, 169-372; with two engraved frontispieces (by Grignion after Hayman); a well-used copy, with the first gathering in volume II beginning to come loose, and some browning throughout; contemporary calf, rebacked. Second edition, published shortly after the first edition, which appeared in late January 1748. This edition was published on 7 April, with two frontispieces were added for the first time. The popularity of the book meant that the publisher wanted to get the new edition out in short order, so the printing was done by two (or possibly three) houses: Strahan seems to have printed all of volume I, and up to sig. G (to p. 156) in volume II. Another printing house was responsible for H-N (pp. 169-312), and yet another printed O-Q (pp. 313-372) these last three gatherings have a typeface slightly different from the rest of the volumes. It is known that Smollett revised the text for this edition. As Brack and Davis pointed out in their PBSA article in 1970, he made revisions in three editions all told, but 'these revisions of 1748 are perhaps more interesting than the others to a student of Smollett's art, as he seems concerned here with completing and polishing character and with force of style. Later his primary concern seems to have been smoothness, clarity, and grammatical fine points' (p. 297). More, however, remains to be related about the printing of this second edition, because there are two states of sig. B in volume I (which would have been the first signature to be set by the compositors), almost certainly because a late decision was taken to increase the print run. These settings were described and tabulated as a and [alpha] by Albert H. Smith in his article in the Library in 1973, using this copy as one of two he found with the second setting (acknowledging RHL's help on p. 309). Smith laid out at some length the small differences between the two, including some in this setting which corrected mistakes carried over from the first edition (e.g. on p. 22 line 19, where 'reveler!' is corrected to 'reviler!'). The simplest way to tell the difference between the two is by checking the press figures: in the first setting they are 12-3 and 23-1; in this second setting they are 4-1 and 14-4. See O M Brack and James B. Davis, 'Smollett's revisions of Roderick Random', PBSA 64 (1970), pp. 295ff; and Albert H. Smith, 'A duplicate setting in the second edition of Smollett's Roderick Random', The Library, 5th series, 28 (1973), pp. 309-18. See also the bibliography of the novel in the Georgia edition of Smollett, pp. 599-600, where the editors examined thirteen copies and found only three in this state.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: THE ADVENTURES OF RODERICK RANDOM. In two volumes. The second edition.
• Editore: London: printed for J. Osborn in Pater-noster-Row
• Data di pubblicazione: 1748
• Edizione: prima edizione
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • Fiction