The Observer: Being a Collection of Moral, Literary and Familiar Essays (Four Volumes, Complete)

Dublin: P. Byrne, R. Marchbank, J. Moore, and W. Jones. Very Good with no dust jacket. 1791. First Edition Thus. First Printing. Leather. Contemporary full mottled leather, spines in seven compartments separated by gilt borders, one red and one black label in two compartments. This collection of essays and other writings of Richard Cumberland was first published in several volumes between 1785 and 1791. This four volume edition is the first complete edition published thereafter, in Dublin, later in 1791. Richard Cumberland (1732–1811) was an English dramatist and civil servant. In 1771 his hit play "The West Indian" was first staged. During the American War of Independence he acted as a secret negotiator with Spain in an effort to secure a peace agreement between the two nations. He also edited a short-lived critical journal called "The London Review" (1809). His plays are often remembered for their sympathetic depiction of colonial characters and others generally considered to be margins of society. Playwright and novelist Richard Cumberland is buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. His grave is next to that of actor John Henderson and near to the grave of his friend Dr Samuel Johnson. He was born on 19 February 1732 in Cambridge, a son of the Revd. Denison Cumberland and his wife Joanna (Bentley). His great grandfather was Richard Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough. He attended Westminster School and Trinity College Cambridge. The Earl of Halifax employed him as his private secretary. He started to write plays, and novels, prose work and poems followed. His well known plays are "The Critic" and "The School for Scandal." He died at Tunbridge Wells. The burial service was taken by his old friend William Vincent, Dean of Westminster. His son, his grandson, the Hon.and Revd. William Bentinck (son of Richard's daughter Elizabeth and Lord Edward Bentinck), and two nephews, Bentinck and Cumberland Hughes, were the chief mourners. At the close of the service the Dean gave an oration "Good People, the person you see now deposited is Richard Cumberland, an author of no small merit; his writings were chiefly for the stage, but of strict moral tendency; they were not without faults but they were not gross... his works will be held in the highest estimation as long as the English language shall be understood..." . Boards mildly bowed, contents unmarked, tight and clean. The books are seemingly unread. A handsome set. VERY GOOD. . 16mo 6" - 7" tall. 286; 312; 336; 271 pp .