Settle, Elkanah

4to (8 1/4 x 6 1/4 in.; 209 x 156 mm). Double-page engraved frontispiece of the Dorset Garden Theatre by William Sherwin, five engraved plates including three signed by William Dolle, errata slip pasted on K4 verso; frontispiece spotted as is the title but less so, small hole in corner of K3 affecting catchword,  some minor staining and thumb-soiling. Nineteenth-century green straight grain morocco, gilt, by Pratt.

(Christie's South Kensington, 30 November 2001, lot 86). acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

 

Wing 2678; ESTC R223430; The London Stage, I, 206

First edition. Elkanah Settle was in his day considered a serious rival to Dryden, who pilloried him as Doeg in Absalom and Achitophel. The present heroic tragedy was apparently first performed at court and then at the Duke's Theatre, with music, on 3 July 1673. Subsequently burlesqued by Thomas D'Urfey, the tragedy would not be remembered except for the engraved plates in the printed edition,  the first printed English play to be so extensively illustrated. The plates also have unique distinction in showing so graphically the stage and characteristic elaborate scenery of the Duke's Theatre at Dorset Garden, which had been opened early in the 1671–72 season. For Settle, see also lots 927–929.