[JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784).] Marmor Norfolciense. London: J. Brett, 1739.

Remarkably rare first edition of Johnson’s Augustan satire of the Hanoverian succession; with an early Freemasonry handbook owned by Grand Master John Ward. Though reprinted in 1775, the original 1739 pamphlet of Johnson’s anonymous Marmor Norfolciense became increasingly rare soon after its publication due to alleged suppression of anti-Georgian sentiment (or perhaps simply a lack of public interest). James Boswell, in his Life of Samuel Johnson, describes an unfruitful search through Government papers for rumored warrants for Johnson’s capture and casts doubt on any such theories, but nonetheless affirms how Marmor Norfolciense “became exceedingly scarce, so that I for many years endeavoured in vain to procure a copy of it” (Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, I.74).

The present complete copy contains a variant of Fleeman’s first edition half-titles with the price listed below the second row of flowers; it also has the explicit on p. 55. From an early date, the pamphlet was bound with a 1738 tract on the recently-deceased Queen Caroline, consort to George II, and to the beginning of these a 1736 guidebook on Freemasonry was later added—thus forming the present volume. Courtney and Nichol Smith, p. 9; Fleeman 39.4MN/1; Rothschild 1219.

Three works in one, octavo (195 x 115mm). Half-title, 3 wood-engravings (title-page device, headpiece and initial). Contemporary quarter calf with light blue paper boards, bound between two contemporary British tracts (head and tail of spine chipped, spine and edges rubbed). Provenance: John Ward, 1704-1774, 1st Viscount Dudley and Ward, Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge of England, 1742-1744 (bookplate, initials on prefatory leaves). Recent custom cloth box with Johnson’s Marmor Norfolciense spine label.

[Bound after:] SMITH, William. The Free Mason’s Pocket Companion. London: John Torbuck, 1736. Later issue. Engraved plate by T. Worlidge and J. Clark. ESTC T56383. [And with:] [CLARKE, Alured (1696-1742).] An Essay Towards the Character of Her late Majesty Caroline, Queen-Consort of Great Britain, &c. London: J. and P. Knapton, 1738. ESTC T89483. Second edition. Half-title, engraved roundel on title-page by John Pine (soiling to half-title, toning to final leaves, occasional minor stains).