[BYRON, George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron, i.e. "Lord BYRON" (1788-1824)]. Don Juan, London, 1819, Cantos I - II (only, of 16) bound in one volume, 4to, VERY FINELY BOUND in 19th-century dark green crushed morocco gilt by F. Bedford. FIRST EDITION.

[BYRON, George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron, i.e. "Lord BYRON" (1788-1824)].  Don Juan. London: Printed by Thomas Davison, 1819. Cantos I - II (only, of 16) bound in one volume, 4to (290 x 225mm). Half title, old printed price label laid down on a rear blank. VERY FINELY BOUND in 19th-century dark green crushed morocco gilt by FRANCIS BEDFORD, spine gilt in 7 compartments, top edges gilt, others uncut, dentelles, plain burgundy endpapers (one short scuff mark to edge of lower cover, a few other light scuff and scratch marks). Please see lot 221 for a note on the binder. Provenance: The Property of a Lady, by descent from her great grandfather. A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, IN A BEAUTIFUL BINDING, of the first two cantos of Byron's (unfinished) masterpiece, printed, unlike the later cantos, in quarto. "... [A]n unfinished epic satire in ottava rima by Lord Byron, published 1819-24 ... With Beppo Byron had found in ottava rima a new form for his voice, and he adopted it for Don Juan. He told his publisher, John Murray, 'I have no plan ... the Soul of such writing is its licence ...', but he did undoubtedly intend a longer work than the one that was cut short by his death, after 16 cantos and a fragment of a 17th. He wished the poem to be 'a little quietly facetious about everything'. Almost every serious passage is abruptly punctured; as Hazlitt wrote, after the 'intoxication' comes 'the splashing of the soda-water'. The outspoken wit and satire are especially directed at hypocrisy in all its forms, at social and sexual conventions, and at sentimentality. There are many attacks on the objects of Byron's scorn, among them Southey, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Wellington, Lord Londonderry, and many others. The poet told Lady Blessington in 1823 that 'there are but two sentiments to which I am constant - a strong love of liberty, and a detestation of cant'. Both sentiments receive full expression in the poem ... The first two cantos were ill-received by the critics, who called them 'an insult and an outrage' and 'a filthy and impious poem', but the work became increasingly successful with the general public and was much admired by Goethe, who translated a part of it" (The Oxford Companion to English Literature (ed. Drabble, 1985)). "On 19 Sept. 1818 [Byron] has finished the first canto of 'Don Juan'. On 25 Jan. 1819 he tells Murray to print fifty copies for private distribution. On 6 April he sends the second canto. The two were published without author's or publisher's name in July 1819. The outcry [against the first two cantos] had disconcerted him, and he was so put out by hearing that a Mr Saunders had called it 'all Grub Street,' as to lay it aside for a time ... He wrote 'Don Juan' on gin and water ..." (DNB). Cf. Ashley Library I, pp.157-159; Hayward English Poetry 222: "1500 copies of the first edition, in quarto, of the first two anonymous Cantos were printed by Thomas Davison, of Whitefriars, for John Murray, in 1819, of which 150 were left over when the book was reprinted as an octavo, in the same year, in order to conform in format to the succeeding Cantos"; Randolph p.69; Tinker 571; Wise II, p.4.