Antique Gulliver's Travels Printed in 1826 Found in Old Basement

I found this copy of Gulliver's travels in the basement of a building built in 1896.

The title page says:

LONDON
PRINTED FOR HECTOR McLEAN
16, SALISBURY STREET, STRAND.
1826.

I am new to antique book collecting. This book seems to have some stains throughout that seem more like age spots. Based on the supplied photos, what condition would you say the book is in? Any suggestions for a fair asking price?

Thanks!

 

I'm sorry to say that in old book terms that is not all that old.

It would really need to be almost 100 years older to commmand a half decent price.

 

Thanks for that info! Ya I don't expect it to be worth much, but don't really know what to mark it.

 

Afantiques, I am curious . . . do you think (in general?) the "book market" in the United States (and perhaps more importantly in some geographic areas of the USA) would perhaps be more "robust" for an 1826 book printed in England/Great Britain?

I wonder if perhaps the British book market is so used to finding/having books of this date and sort (given that it is a "London" book) that they are less interested in having one of this "recent" date.

My point being that in the USA perhaps there is more interest in a book published in London with a date of 1826 (young in some eyes though it may be).

 

When you're ready to do what you will with it please let me know.
Thank you.

 

Are all 4 parts in the one volume? I think you only have Part 1.
The key might be who Hector McLean was.

Don't get too excited this is starting at the highest
The book was first written in 1726.

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=lemuel+gulliver&sortby=1&sts=t&tn=Travels&x=64&y=9

 

I just checked the table of contents and the corresponding pages and this is in fact all four parts in a single volume.

Thanks so much for that link. This appears to be the same copy, except the image opposite the title page is different. Looking like this may be in the $100 range, which is far more than I expected!

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Boo...ts=t&sortby=1&tn=Travels&an=lemuel%20gulliver

 

Great point here. New to this though I am, I assume your hypothesis is correct, at least to some extent. I think for the casual shopper, a well known book printed this early would be of some value.

 

If you're interested, I am happy to hear an offer!

 

You could well be right, but I'd say this was much more the case 20 years ago. When I started selling books on ebay around 1998, I made large profits because the US market was far less fussy about condition than the UK booksellers.

The British trade wanted pristine 17th C. copies, so anything with binding problems such as a detached board appeared at auction in large mixed lots so I could buy a mixed box of 17th and early 18th C books in less than good condition for £100 or so. The right items would fetch almost that much individually from US buyers (of course, everything was sold as an auction with a 99c. start).

I could buy cheap because British booksellers seemed to be unaware of the US market or how easy it was to reach it.
Of course, they caught on after a few years, and nowadays much more is internet available. This may have reduced US demand for the run of the mill by making more of our British old book wealth available to US buyers.

In my opinion this will have levelled down prices for books that are merely old, and in the case of this book, have been in print in one edition or another since publication.

One good effect is that prices at auction for defective but seriously old books have increased considerably, to my benefit when I sold the old books from the Manchester Hoard (see threads passim.)

 

Hey, with those gold edges, that's not a fore-edge painted book, is it?????

 

The edges are indeed painted gold, but there doesn't appear to be any kind of scene.

 

The one in your link says it was printed in 1823, and yours says 1826. That could be a factor in price comparisons. I know that in bookselling, every little point makes a difference. Also, the price listed is what somebody is asking for it, not necessarily what anybody will pay.

That being said, it would be helpful to have a bibliography of the editions of Swift's works. It helps that this title is still well known now. The age of the book is not necessarily much of a factor.

 

This is all true and if a 'points' list for these books can be found then the exact edition can usually be determined.

 

I'm so lucky - a book binder just happened to come by my shop and informed me that in fact there IS a fore edge painting! The pages just needed to be fanned out. He also said that the spine is stamped letter by letter by hand because he can see the overlapping of the tools used. So excited to find this beautiful painting - thanks so much for your help!

 

Wow!
This has probably pushed it out of my budget now but would still like to know where you land on it please.

 

Things are looking up-- That takes it into another realm!

 

Pun intended????

 

I did find a fairly recent bibliography of Jonathan Swift's works, in Google Books.

I don't see that edition in there, since it appears that the editions of Gulliver's Travels are listed chronologically.
https://books.google.com/books?id=b...ns of the world" lemuel gulliver 1826&f=false

Unless Hector McLean originally printed it much earlier than 1823 (I did not go through the whole thing, but the word "McLean" did not come up as a word within the book.

The fore-edge painting is the big selling point, I think!

Um, no... and I don't know what you're referring to.

 

"...another realm."