WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1732.
AN ESSAY ON MAN.—Addressed to a Friend. Part I.
London: Printed for J. Wilford, at the Three Flower-de-luces, behind the Chapter-house, St. Paul's. Price one shilling. Folio.
This is the first edition of Epistle I. of the Essay on Man, which was published anonymously, and without any date on the title-page, Feb. 1733. It was also printed in quarto and octavo. The octavo has not the prefatory address "To the Reader." The right to print each epistle of the Essay on Man for one year was bought by Gilliver for 50l. an Epistle.
AN ESSAY ON MAN.—In Epistles to a Friend. Epistle I.
Corrected by the Author. London, etc. Folio.
The rest of the title-page is the same as in the first edition. This second edition has a table of Contents to the first three Epistles, which were originally published without the table. The fourth Epistle had the table prefixed from the outset. With the exception of the first Epistle, I am not aware that there was a second edition of any part of the Essay on Man till the whole was incorporated in the works of the poet. An octavo edition, published by Wilford in 1736, is called the seventh; but he may have counted in the three sizes of the first edition, together with the editions which had appeared in Pope's works.