"For equal accuracy and beauty, let the palm be extended to Davison and Moyes," cries Mr. Dibdin in The Bibliographical Decameron. In a note he adds: "Mr. Davison is both an excellent and an elegant printer. His Gil Blas, published by Messrs. Longman, Hurst, and Co. is quite worthy of the beautiful engravings with which that edition is adorned: but his Arabian Nights, by Scott, 1811, in 6 octavo volumes, is, to my eye, a more exquisite performance."
Early in their intercourse Murray had said to Byron: "Could I flatter myself that these suggestions were not obtrusive, I would hazard another, in an earnest solicitation that your lordship would add the two promised Cantos, and complete the Poem." But the volume containing the third Canto was not issued until 1816, when Murray paid £2000 for it. The fourth Canto, in a much thicker volume, came out two years afterward, and for this £2100 were received by the poet. The second volume sold for 5s. 6d., and the last for 12s.
Byron must have carried his point about the size, for these last volumes were issued in octavo.
Quarto.
Collation: vi pp., 1 l., 226 pp. Facsimile.
[*] Alluding to Gil Blas and the Archbishop of Grenada.
JANE AUSTEN
(1775-1817)
69. Pride | And | Prejudice: | A Novel. | In Three Volumes. | By The | Author Of "Sense And Sensibility." | Vol. I. | London: | Printed For T. Egerton, | Military Library, Whitehall. | 1813.