1822 Rare True First Edition Book Set - The Pirate by Sir Walter Scott
This book has been sold, but we regularly acquire comparable copies.
An attractive complete three-volume First Edition, First Issue, First State of Sir Walter Scott’s The Pirate (1822), retaining all three half-titles and the important first-state reading “their” on page 17 of Volume II, in handsome contemporary half-calf bindings.
Author: Sir Walter Scott.
Title: The Pirate. By the Author of “Waverley, Kenilworth,” &c. In Three Volumes.
Publisher: Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co.; and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., London, 1822.
Edition: First Edition, First Issue, First State, with the important first-state reading “their” at the end of line 20 on page 17 of Volume II. Volume I has a semicolon after the first “Co.” in the title-page imprint. Complete in three volumes, with the half-titles present in each volume, here unusually bound immediately after the title pages.
Language: English.
Pages: vii, 322; 332; 346 pages.
Size: 7 x 4.5 inches.
Binding: Attractive and very good contemporary half tan calf over marbled boards, the spines with red-brown morocco lettering and volume labels, gilt rules and decorative gilt ornaments. Bindings remain sound and handsome, with light rubbing, scuffing and expected signs of age, chiefly to the leather extremities and boards, as shown. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content, complete, generally bright, tight and clean, with occasional light foxing and age toning as expected. Half-titles present in all three volumes, bound immediately following the respective title pages. Small early ownership label of John Tomkins, Weir, Hereford, to the front pastedown of Volume I,II and III, as shown.
Estimate: USD 700–1,000.
The books:
A particularly desirable complete First Edition, First Issue, First State of The Pirate, one of Walter Scott’s celebrated Waverley novels. The first state is distinguished by the reading “their” at the end of line 20 on page 17 of Volume II, a bibliographical point retained in this copy. The presence of all three half-titles further enhances the set, particularly as these preliminary leaves are often lacking in surviving copies. The volumes remain together in attractive contemporary bindings, giving the set considerable shelf presence while preserving its early nineteenth-century character.
Published anonymously in 1822 as “By the Author of Waverley, Kenilworth, &c.,” The Pirate is set among the dramatic landscapes of the Shetland and Orkney Islands and draws upon maritime history, local tradition and the career of the eighteenth-century pirate John Gow. Scott had visited the Northern Isles in 1814, and the novel reflects his fascination with their geography, folklore and Norse inheritance. The resulting story combines romance, adventure, shipwreck, superstition and historical imagination in one of the most atmospheric of the Waverley novels.
The author:
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) was a Scottish novelist, poet, historian and antiquary whose historical romances transformed nineteenth-century fiction. Beginning with Waverley in 1814, Scott created a remarkably influential sequence of novels that brought historical settings, regional culture and political conflict into popular literature on an unprecedented scale.
His best-known works include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Heart of Midlothian, Kenilworth and The Bride of Lammermoor. The Pirate belongs to the mature period of the Waverley novels and is particularly notable for its evocation of Scotland’s Northern Isles and its blending of documented history with legend and romantic adventure.