The very rare Dublin piracy
Dictionary of love. In which is contained, the explanation of most of the terms used in that language.
Dublin: printed in the year, 1754. First Dublin edition, and second edition overall; 16mo, pp. xii, [204]; contemporary and likely original calf-backed boards, red morocco label; joints cracked, cords holding. First published in London the previous year of which ESTC locates 10 copies - 6 in the U.S.). This Dublin edition, likely a piracy, is known by two copies only: Cambridge University and University of Chicago. Translated by the author of Fanny Hill, and based on a French text by J. F. Dreux de Rodier which was first published in 1741. As such, it is the first dictionary of its kind in English. Dr. Roger Lonsdale, of Balliol College, Oxford, was able to attribute this work to Cleland from an examination of the Bodleian copy of the Monthly Review in which Griffiths (the publisher of the London edition) annotated the reviews, sometimes with the names of otherwise anonymous authors. In November, 1753 Ralph Griffiths, himself a publisher of editions of Fanny Hill, published The Dictionary of Love. He reviewed it in the Monthly Review in December, 1753 where he annotated the opening sentence of the review changing "ingenious author" to "Mr. Cleland." Lonsdale notes that the 10-page preface is by Cleland and that about a quarter of the definitions are also his, the rest being translations from the French. Unknown to Alston, who lists the first edition as well as the later London editions (1776; 1777; 1787; 1795). It was still in print as late as 1824, and there was a Philadelphia edition of 1798. Not in Alston, but see Alston IX, 317 for the first edition. See Lonsdale, Roger, "New Attributions to John Cleland" in The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. XXX, no. 119, August 1979, pp. 285-87. Item #41178
Price: $4,000.00
