George Wither’s Emblem Book of 1635.
Size: 11 x 7 3/4 in.
This book is titled “A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne” by George Wither and printed in London in 1635 by A. M. [Augustine Mathews] for Richard Royston. The full title is “A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne: Quickened with Metricall Illustrations, both Morall and Divine: And disposed into Lotteries, That Instruction, and Good Counsell, may bee furthered by an Honest and Pleasant Recreation”, and it’s an important Renaissance emblem book.
The book is divided into four parts: “The First Booke” is dated 1635 on the title page and the next three books (Bookes) are dated 1634 in Roman numerals. There are fifty circular emblems in each book, each emblem has a thirty-line poem below the emblem. The emblems in the first book are numbered from 1 to 50, the emblems in the second book are numbered from 63 to 112, the emblems in the third book are numbered 135 to 184, and the emblems in the fourth book are numbered from 209 to 258, for a total of 200 emblems altogether, as called for. The two lines in English above each emblem are mottoes reminiscent of the sayings of Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, and the emblems, mottoes, and poems below are intended to impart moral or spiritual advice.
The emblems were printed from plates which were originally engraved by Crispijn van de Passe the Elder (1564 - 1637) for the Nucleus emblematorum by Gabriel Rollenhagen. Rollenhagen was a German poet from Magdeburg and van de Passe came from a renowned family of Dutch engravers. Wither’s book came out two decades later and retained the original engravings and mottoes and provided new and longer poems to replace Rollenhagen’s, and the volume Matthews printed stands as one of the most exquisite examples of an emblem book, and Wither’s book is not the first of the genre, but it’s arguably the most stunning.
The book has suede covers, five raised bands, a maroon label with gilt lettering and “1635” in gilt on the spine, decorated and double-ruled borders and corner devices on the covers, blank endpapers with a pencilled note that mentions the Grolier catalogue and “variant imprint” along with the bookplate of James Lowell on the front paste-down, another flyleaf in front has a pencilled note about the portrait in front, the book owners’s name, Katherine Thistlethwayte, is inscribed and dated 1725 on the page before the Preposition page - she has descendants in the London area in England - the Preposition page is opposite the frontispiece, and the elaborate frontispiece was engraved by William Marshall, whose name appears in the lower left. The Preposition was written by the author and says that even though Wither didn’t particularly like the frontispiece, he thought it should be included in the book anyway. (Wither gave general instructions for the design to Marshall, but the author was exasperated with the result on the grounds that its symbolism was incoherent.)
The bottom of the frontispiece depicts figures emerging from a dark cave, the figures are on a journey up a mountain with two peaks at the top, one representing Heaven and the other Hell - i.e, a choice between salvation and damnation or between the right and the wrong paths in life. At first, the path on the right appears more attractive, then it becomes rocky and finally leads to death; the path on the left is harder at first, but becomes rocky and finally leads to death; the path on the left is harder at first, but eventually becomes easier and leads to paradise.
The page following the title page was written in Latin by Guil. Bray and he says that even though he finds the book is not very useful to print, it has to be sent to the printer’s within seven months or the license for the book will be completely void, and this imprimatur from Bray is dated July 2, 1634. (An imprimatur is a declaration authorizing publication of a book.) Then comes a two-page Writ of Prevention, a four-page epistle by the author dedicated to King Charles and Queene Mary, six pages by the author to the reader with advice about the game of chance at the end of the book, then a portrait of the author and two additional pages by the author telling what he thought of his own portrait, and the first emblem in the book depicts a human figure and a skeleton representing death, which is a prevalent theme in the book.
After the emblem pages, there’s a five-page Index at the rear (“A Table for the better finding out of the principall things and matters, mentioned in these Foure Bookes”), with old white tape repairs on the last page of the Index, then two pages by Wither thanking people for buying this book, and the last leaf in the book contains two volvelles or dials that act like wheels of fortune to guide you in choosing a good path in life.
People used wheels of fortune, even in the 1600’s, so the publisher asked Wither to create a wheel of fortune game for the book. It consisted of two volvelles, which were engravings in the form of a wheel or spinner, at the center of each spinner there was supposed to be a movable pointer you could rotate with your finger. The top volvelle showed a circle divided into 56 segments, with 50 corresponding emblems in the book, while the remainder were designated as blanks. The bottom volvelle was divided into four parts, which corresponded to the four books of the emblem book here. By following the page of instructions opposite the volvelles, readers would spin the wheels and were directed to one of the four books, and within each book to a particular emblem, and Wither says the wheels were not a predictor or oracle of someone’s fate, just a game of chance or recreation.
A facsimile page of the two volvelles is tipped in at the back and it shows you what the spinners would have looked like with pointers, and if you lift up the blank dials on the actual volvelles page, you can see the original engravings under the dials, so the volvelle page at the rear is here and intact. (Many existing copies of the book lack the volvelles or they’re torn from use, but here, they are very intact.)
The wheels were like a lottery or fortune-telling and divination game, but it wasn’t supposed to be played for money or personal gain, it was designed to help a person make good moral choices in life.
Frank Mowery, world-renowned book binder and paper conservator in Venice, Florida, examined the book and told us authoritatively that the volvelles in the back are absolutely genuine, and he added that these volvelles are exceptionally rare.
There are 19 unpaginated pages at the beginning of the book, from the Preposition to the first emblem page, then 270 pages for the emblems and poems, and 9 unnumbered pages at the rear, from the Index to the volvelles page, and all the emblems, verses, and text are present and intact, as well as the two volvelles at the rear.
George Wither (1588 - 1667) was born in Bentworth, in Hampshire, England, and was a prolific English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist who also wrote religious hymns. Between 1611 and 1613 he wrote twenty satires directed against Revenge, Ambition, and Lust, and these satires, aimed at exposing “the abuses of these wicked Times”, achieved popular success and were reprinted several times; one included a poem called “The Scourge”, which attacked the Lord Chancellor, and even though his satires did not reference anybody by name and Wither had published them a year before without any trouble, he was arrested for libel in 1614 and imprisoned for four months before being released. In the 1630’s he was employed by Henry Taunton, a London publisher, to write English verses to go along with the allegorical plates of Crispijn van de Passe for the emblem book by Rollenhagen. Wither supported the Commonwealth and pushed for a more egalitarian view of society, he was an Anglican who moved closer to the Quakers later in life, and he had reputation as a brilliant poet, even though he is obscure to most readers today.
The book measures 11 x 7 3/4 inches wide and is in very good condition. The binding is tight and the pages are rather clean, with occasional brown spots on a few pages, small nicks at some edges, light watermarks in the margins on pages 82 and 83, light stains on a few pages in the third book, chips in a couple of margins, tape repairs on pages 46 and 79 and the last page of the Index, and still an attractive copy of this rare emblem book by Wither.
Apparently the only perfect copy known to exist is at the British Museum, and several less-than-perfect copies can be found in Special Collections, but only four of those were printed by Augustine Mathews for Richard Royston, according to WorldCat. All four are in libraries in Germany: Landesbibliothek in Coburg, the University of Bamberg, the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, and the University of Bayreuth, and we found three copies sold at auction: one by Christie’s in 2001 for $7050 (with wear and small repairs), $2600 by Potter’s Auctions in 2023, and a poor copy sold by Bonhams for $1300 in 2023 (it lacked several leaves, had dampstains, loose and worn pages, heavy repairs to the margins, hinge cracks, and heavy spine wear), and our copy is in much better condition than the one sold at Bonhams; the same title is also being offered for $3500 on the rare book website we use, and we are keeping the opening bid low to encourage viewers to bid.
All items are sold AS IS. Lot and condition details are for descriptive purposes only. Sarasota Estate Auction is not responsible for errors and/or omissions of condition. The absence of a condition report does not imply that the lot is perfect or free from wear, flaws, or characteristics of age. Please bid according to your own expertise, or request any additional information and/or photographs you deem necessary.
