![[SWIFT, Jonathan]. A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff Esq; against what is objected to him by Mr. Partridge, in his Almanack for the present Year 1709. By the said Isaac Bickerstaff Esq. London: [s.n.], 1709.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2015/NYR/2015_NYR_12435_0169_000(swift_jonathan_a_vindication_of_isaac_bickerstaff_esq_against_what_is120533).jpg?w=1)
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[SWIFT, Jonathan]. A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff Esq; against what is objected to him by Mr. Partridge, in his Almanack for the present Year 1709. By the said Isaac Bickerstaff Esq. London: [s.n.], 1709.
8° (180 x 113mm). (Some light dust marks.) Modern quarter green morocco and marbled boards, uncut.
FIRST EDITION. The first of the Bickerstaff tracts, Predictions for the Year 1708 (end of January 1708), made a series of astrological predictions, the first of which was that Partridge, for long the author of the almanac Merlinus Libertus, would “infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever.” The next published tract announced The Accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff’s Predictions. Being an Account of the Death of Mr. Partridge, the Almanack-Maker, upon the 29th instant (30 March 1708). The Vindication is referred to in the Tatler of 12 April, 1709. While it “abandons any real attempt to maintain the hoax,” it expounds an absurd situation with great reasonableness. “Ostensibly, the matter of the pamphlet is a demonstration that Partridge is dead. Instead of treating the astrologer as a corpse, however, Swift from the start alludes to him as alive, and yet continues to insist on the proofs of his decease” (Ehrenpreis, Swift. ii. 207). ALMOST UNKNOWN ON THE MARKET. The databases record only one auction sale in 1980. Rothschild 2001; Rumbold, Parodies, Hoaxes, Mock Treatises, 66, 654; Teerink 498.
8° (180 x 113mm). (Some light dust marks.) Modern quarter green morocco and marbled boards, uncut.
FIRST EDITION. The first of the Bickerstaff tracts, Predictions for the Year 1708 (end of January 1708), made a series of astrological predictions, the first of which was that Partridge, for long the author of the almanac Merlinus Libertus, would “infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever.” The next published tract announced The Accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff’s Predictions. Being an Account of the Death of Mr. Partridge, the Almanack-Maker, upon the 29th instant (30 March 1708). The Vindication is referred to in the Tatler of 12 April, 1709. While it “abandons any real attempt to maintain the hoax,” it expounds an absurd situation with great reasonableness. “Ostensibly, the matter of the pamphlet is a demonstration that Partridge is dead. Instead of treating the astrologer as a corpse, however, Swift from the start alludes to him as alive, and yet continues to insist on the proofs of his decease” (Ehrenpreis, Swift. ii. 207). ALMOST UNKNOWN ON THE MARKET. The databases record only one auction sale in 1980. Rothschild 2001; Rumbold, Parodies, Hoaxes, Mock Treatises, 66, 654; Teerink 498.