[T. DWIGHT] Journal of a Tour in Italy. NY: 1824. Original boards. Rare thus. 'Grand Tour' narrative

[Theodore DWIGHT (1796-1866)]. Journal of a Tour in Italy, in the Year 1821; with a Description of Gibraltar. … By an American. New York: printed for the Author by Abraham Paul, 1824. Octavo (9 ¼ x 5 7/8in; 235 x 150mm). Pp.[i-]iv; [5-]6-468. Uncut. 10 plates engraved by Danforth from the Author’s drawings. (Plates and surrounding txt pages spotted, pp. 235/236 with repaired clean tear running into the text area). Publisher’s paper-covered boards, paper label to backstrip (splits to joints, vertical cracks to backstrip, damage to head of backstrip). Provenance: Sir John Taylor Coleridge (1790-1876, inscribed ‘J.T Coleridge / Montague House / 1832’).

Unsophisticated copy of a first edition of the author’s first published book: rare on the market and particularly rare in this condition. A relatively early account of the travels of an American abroad. The provenance is interesting: Sir John Taylor Coleridge (9 July 1790 – 11 February 1876) was an English judge, the second son of Captain James Coleridge and nephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was born at Tiverton, Devon, and was educated as a Colleger (King's Scholar) at Eton College, and in 1809 gained a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Corpus Christi, John Keble became a close friend. Coleridge won the Chancellor's Prize for Latin verse in 1810, graduated first-class in classics in 1812, won the prizes for English and Latin essays in 1813 (as Keble had done in 1811), and became a Vinerian Scholar and a fellow of Exeter College. In 1819 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple and practised for some years on the western circuit.

In 1824, on William Gifford's retirement, he assumed the editorship of the Quarterly Review, resigning it a year afterwards in favour of John Gibson Lockhart. In 1825 he published a well regarded edition of William Blackstone's Commentaries, and in 1832 he was made a serjeant-at-law and recorder of Exeter. In 1835 he was appointed one of the judges of the King's Bench. In 1852 his university created him a DCL, and in 1858 he resigned his judgeship, and was made a member of the Privy Council, entitling him to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Shaw & Shoemaker 16025.