Description

Offered: Early American Imprint** 1811 The Works of Peter Pindar, Esq. (IN FOUR VOLUMES) with copious Index To Which is Prefixed Some Account Of His Life BOSTON Published by Charles Williams** Greenough and Stebbins , Printers. *** Four volume set with ach volume having a half-title, frontispiece, engraved title page and regular title page with Peter Pindar being on Volume 1. Peter Pindar was the pen name of John Wolcot. His satires began with his fellow aristocrats and continued against the King and Queen. He further mocked James Boswell and Hannah More as well as pompous religious figures. ******Complete sets are uncommon******* Volume 1: 4v (5 1/4 x 3") full leather frontispiece Peter Pindar, title piece engraving, title page 1811, memoirs of the author vii,To the Reviewers (7) 501 pp. Cracked through center title label lacking only on this first volume, Otherwise Complete. Volume II: 4v ( 5 1/4 x 3") Full leather Black Leather Label (Pindar), frontispiece (first on a child) engraved title page, title page, subjects for painters, 456 pp.complete Volume III: 4v (5 1/4 x 3) black spine labelFull Leather frontispiece delighting heart , title engraving ,title page, academic procession 472 pp. complete Volume IV: 4v (5 1/4 x 3) Full Leather, black spine label frontispiece the secret her soul would complain, title engraving, title page 1811 odes to in and outs 495 pp. last page 1/4 present lacking little of printed page Index 449-495 substantially complete. All volumes full leather with expected page toning and occasional damp staining for these two century aged scarce complete set of Peter Pindar's Works. JOHN WOLCOT ('PETER PINDAR') was born in 1738 in Devon. He was educated in Devon, Cornwall and France and he also studied medicine in London. His medical degree was gained from Aberdeen University in 1767, by external examination in Plymouth. In the same year he travelled to Jamaica and became physician to the governor, Sir William Trelawney. Upon his return to England after Trelawney's death he practised medicine in Cornwall, where he befriended the artist John Opie, who became his protégé. In 1778 Wolcot abandoned medicine and went with Opie to London, where he began his career as a satirist under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, publishing Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians (1782–5). His verses were bestsellers and he became a well-known figure in the capital's literary and political circles, greatly admired for his biting wit and social commentary. His targets included William Pitt, James Boswell, Sir Joseph Banks and the moralist Hannah More. His most important target was the King himself. In 1786 he published the first canto of his most important poem, The Lousiad, the five volumes of which were not completed until 1795, and in 1787 Ode upon Ode, which ridiculed the official yearly odes to King George III. Wolcot’s verse was collected in 1812. He died in London in 1819 and was buried in the church of St Paul's, Covent Garden.