[2], 194, 185-484 [i.e. 494] pp. With 26 copper-engraved plates, most engraved by I. Basire. (folio) 14½x9¼, later full red straight-grained morocco with gilt filet and rolled borders, spine tooled in gilt, raised bands, gilt inner dentelles, all edges gilt. First Edition.
Rare first edition of this famous account of Britain's most notorious outlaws, most notable perhaps for the lives of pirates and buccaneers, including Edward Teach (Blackbeard), Henry Morgan, George Lowther, and others. Among the land-based malefanctors are Robin Hood, Jonathan Wild, Sir John Falstaff, Ane Holland, Colonel Jack (or Jacques), and many more. Though this is the first edition of this title, much of the text had previously been published by Captain Alexander Smith in his The History of the Lives of the most noted Highway-men (1714), and Captain Johnson's own A General History of the Pyrates... (1724). The work has been in the past attributed to Daniel Defoe, but that presumption has been discredited. The number of plates proper to this edition is also open to some question - the copies at Emory and Harvard Universities have 26 plates, as this copy, but Hill calls for 27 plates including a frontispiece (which this copy does not have); Sabin calls for 17 plates for this edition (published by Janeway, which he calls "very scarce"), and 26 plates for the "same edition edition with a new title-page and additional plates" published by Payne; Howes calls for 26 plates. The plates in this copy are at times slightly smaller than the text block, and some are poor impressions. Hill 892; Howes J127; Sabin 36194. With the bookplate of Walter Thomas Wallace.
Condition:
Covers neatly detached, chips to spine ends and ribs; vertical crease to title-page and following leaves, some pages at end with short tears in lower margins, still very good or better, contents quite nice, well worthy of repair to the later binding.