[PORNEY, Lewis (translator's pseudonym)]. A New Collection of Romances and Novels: A Work Designed for Instruction as well as Entertainment, being Calculated to Convey a General Knowledge of the World; and Consisting of the most Valuable and Important, Humorous and Pleasant, Entertaining and Instructive Romances, Novels, Fables, Allegories, Memoirs, Adventures, Histories, Anecdotes, &c. Not to be Found in any other Work of the Kind in English. The Whole Newly Translated from the French. London: Printed for the Proprietors, and sold by all Booksellers in Town and Country, n.d. [c. 1780].
FIRST EDITION; leather bound, hardcover, octavo (20cm x 12.5cm x 3cm), pp. 394. English text. Bound in contemporary full call, smooth spine with gilt bands and morocco lettering-piece, initial and terminal blanks present, printed footnotes. Condition: FAIR to GOOD. Joints cracked, the upper board held by the strings. Covers rubbed with some abrasions. This copy bound without the plates (including frontispiece). Textblock very lightly toned, else well-preserved. Armorial bookplate to front pastedown.
Notes: FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. An exceedingly rare collection, with only the Bodleian copy recorded (and that apparently lacking the last leaf). There was a successful French grammar published under the name Lewis Porney, but there is some doubt as to his actuality, and he was perhaps the invention of the booksellers. Certainly the name is suggestive, and some of the stories are a little risqué. Though translated from the French, not all of the stories are French, e.g. the first story by Athenagoras. Included are the Arthurian ‘History of Claris and Laris,’ and the ‘History of Tristran.’
ESTC T107271 (Raven 1780:22) is a variant, the title similar, but with differences including the identification of the translator as ‘Mr. Porney’, and the 10 plates are dated 1780. Our copy appears to be another variant, bound without the plates, with no mention of Porney, or Hogg the publisher on the title-page. ESTC also records Hogg’s New novelist’s magazine, consisting of ... . The supplement. Being a new collection of novels and romances, and containing elegant translations of a variety of French, Spanish, and other foreign romances, ... anecdotes, &c. written by eminent authors, and translated by Lewis Porney, esq., 1794.
