1821-4 Don Juan

Description

First Edition, Leather Binding, Original Binding

The first Octavo edition of Cantos ‘I-II’, and ‘III-IV’ published by Thomas Davison. Both of these volumes were originally published in a large paper format in 1819 and 1821, then as these octavo editions. 

The first editions of volumes III, IV, V and VI (containing cantos VI-XVI), being published by John Hunt.

This set includes; Canto I-II (1823), Cantos III, IV, and IV (1821), Cantos VI, VII and Viii (1823), Cantos IX, X, and XI (1823), Cantos XII, XIII and XIV (1823), Cantos XV and XVI (1824). 

The first couple of volumes were published by Davison as large paper copies, which did not sell effectively, but were then published in octavo format and taken over by John Hunt who published Cantos VI-XVI as Octavo to match the former volumes. Cantos VI-XIV were published over a few months in 1823, and the last two in 1824. A seventeenth canto was intended, but unfortunately Byron died before its completion. 

Volumes I-II bound without half titles, Issued without half titles to Volumes III-VI. Bound without the intended advertisements to vols III-VI. Two pages of publisher’s notes to the rear of ‘Vol VI’, but lacking the erratum slip. 

'Don Juan' is Lord Byron's satirical epic poem, an important feat of Romantic poetry. Byron portrays Don Juan as a man easily seduced by women, rather than a womaniser. The character, but not the plot, is taken from the legendary Spanish libertine figure. Byron's poem is written in ottava rima across sixteen cantos. Upon the publication of the first cantos in 1819 the poem was criticized as immoral.