The Works of Tacitus. TACITUS (Publius Cornelius).

SIR ISAAC LYON GOLDSMID'S COPY

The Works of Tacitus. With Political Discourses upon that Author, by Thomas Gordon Esq. The Third Edition corrected.

Five volumes. 12mo. [176 x 105 x 138 mm]. xvi, 317 pp; [1]f, 288pp; xxiii, [i], 359 pp; [1]f, 356pp; [1]f, 384pp. Bound in contemporary calf, the covers with a gilt fillet border and at the centre a later gilt crest and initials "ILG". The spines divided into six panels with raised bands and gilt compartments, lettered in the second on a red goatskin label and numbered in the third, the others with a serpent within a roundel surmounted with a coronet, the edges of the boards tooled with a gilt roll, marbled endleaves, plain edges. (Joints on vol.1 cracked but firm, some minor wear, rubbing and a few marks).
London: printed for T. and T. Longman, C. Hitch and L. Hawes, A. Millar, R. Dodsley, J. and J. Rivington, and M. Cooper, 1753

Occasional minor damp-staining but a very good copy. The crest on the covers (a lion rampant holding a mortar muzzle upwards) and initials are those of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, first Baronet (1778-1859). It is the fourth of four similar stamps attributed to him on the British Armorial Bindings database. A notable London financier and Jewish communal leader, in 1828 he played a prominent part in the foundation of University College London and in 1834 he helped establish University College Hospital. He was at the forefront of the movement for Jewish political emancipation, the abolition of slavery and penal reform. In 1841 he was made a baronet, thus becoming the first professing Jew to receive an English hereditary title. At his death his estate was valued at over £1 million.

First published in two folio volumes in London in 1728-31, followed by a Dublin edition and a second edition in four volumes in 1737. It remained a standard edition until the end of the century, though Gibbon was less than impressed, describing the style as "pompous".

Stock no. ebc7653