Isaac D’Israeli: A Second Series of Curiosities of Literature

Isaac D’Israeli:

A Second Series of Curiosities of Literature: Consisting of Researches in Literary, Biographical, and Political History; of Critical and Philosophical Enquiries; and of Secret History. In Three Volumes. The Second Edition, Corrected.

London: John Murray, 1824.

Octavo. 208 × 133 mm. I: viii, 474 pp. — II: iv, 448 pp. — III: iv, 488 pp.

Bound in three volumes. Early 20th-century tan half morocco by Bayntun, Bath; spines with five raised bands, richly gilt in compartments. Upper edges gilt.

Isaac D’Israeli (1766-1848), British writer, scholar, man of letters, and father of Benjamin Disraeli, first earl of Beaconsfield (1804-1881), descended from a Jewish family which, having been driven by the Inquisition from Spain towards the end of the 15th century, had emigrated from Cento in Italy to England in 1748. His father sent him to live with his agent at Amsterdam, where he worked under a tutor for four or five years. There he studied Bayle and Voltaire, and became an ardent disciple of Rousseau. He became one the noted bibliophiles of the time. His most popular work was a collection of essays entitled “Curiosities of Literature”. These essays contain a myriad of anecdotes about historical persons and events, unusual books, and the habits of book-collectors.
¶ The “Curiosities of Literature” are “a miscellany of literary and historical anecdotes, of original critical remarks, and of interesting and curious information of all kinds, animated by genuine literary feeling, taste and enthusiasm” (Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911).

Second edition. Cf. Graesse II,410.

 

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