John Husbands

Review from the Brick Row Book Shop:

A miscellany of 61 poems (all but 15 of them by the editor John Husbands) which contains the first published work of Samuel Johnson, a translation into Latin verse of Pope's Messiah, done as an exercise in November 1728 for his Pembroke College tutor, William Jorden. Johnson's seven-page translation in 119 lines was executed with his usual scholarly enthusiasm and impressive (and later legendary) ability to work fast. He completed the task in little over a day. (See Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson, pages 91-93). It has been claimed that there was a separate printing of Johnson's Messiah prior to this publication. A copy has never been found, though Husbands's Miscellany is still sometimes qualified as being the first "surviving" publication of any of Johnson's works. ¶ John Husbands (1706-1732) was also a young scholar at Pembroke College Oxford, but few facts are known about this life, and his claim to fame is as Johnson's first editor. At an early juncture in the 100-page preface, Husbands notes Johnson's contribution: "The translation of Mr. Pope's Messiah was delivered to his tutor, as a college exercise, by Mr. Johnson, a commoner of Pembroke College in Oxford, and 'tis hoped will be no discredit to the excellent original.” In the remaining preface Husbands writes about poetry in general and its models and types. For an interesting article on Husbands's Miscellany, see An Early Eighteenth-Century Enthusiast for Primitive Poetry, Modern Language Notes, January, 1922. ¶ Bookplates of Frank Brewer Bemis and Frederick Whiley Hilles on the front paste-down; small Yale University ink stamp on the verso of the title page; deaccessioned by Yale and sold by C. A. Stonehill of New Haven to collector Paula Peyraud in November, 1985. See Peyraud Sale lot 310. The rear paste-down noted in the catalogue as having a crudely removed bookplate has been replaced with a similar marbled paper.… (mehr)