The Adventures of Count Fathom by Smollett, 1884, Custom Harcourt Binding

Binding Details:  Signed custom binding by the Harcourt Bindery, Charlestown, Massachusetts bound in morocco leather over marbled covered boards with an elaborate spine treatment of raised bands, gold gilt titles, decorations and ruling. There is gold ruling to the boards and hand-sewn silk endbands. The Harcourt Bindery label appears on the bottom of the last free endpaper.

Book Details:  Originally published in 1753, this is 1884 limited edition by George Routledge and Sons, London published with a limitation of 350 copies this being number 254. The University of Georgia Press in their review of the book wrote, “The first novel by a major English writer that is devoted to a thoroughgoing portrait of villainy, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom chronicles the life of an aberrant criminal character. Filled with striking satiric thrusts at the legal, medical, and military establishments of mid-eighteenth-century Europe and England, the novel reveals Tobias Smollett's capacities as a commentator on contemporary life. First published in 1753, Ferdinand Count Fathom is an experimental work that explores the relations between history and fiction and introduces, for the first time in the English novel, episodes of Gothic melodrama.”

Measures approximately 10.5” x 7” with 416 pages that have deckled edges. The limitation number 345 of 350 appears on separate page before the table of contents

.Condition Report: The binding is in FINE condition. Internally, the book is very clean with some darkening to the deckled page edges. There are no bookplates or signs of previous ownership.

A photograph of the binding appears in the photo section of the listing.