Bibliographer: Dina Zingaro
The Sentimental Connoisseur, or, the Pleasing and Entertaining Novelist
Traditional Description
Anonymous. The sentimental connoisseur: or, pleasing and entertaining novelist. London: R. Newton, J. Murdell, M. Cooper, and D. Midwinter, MDCCLXXVIII, 1778. THE | SENTIMENTAL | CONNOISSEUR: | OR, | PLEASING AND ENTERTAINING | NOVELIST. | BEING | AN ELEGANT AND NEW | ASSEMBLAGE | OF | LIVELY EFFUSIONS of | FANCY, | POLITE TALES, | DIVERTING ESSAYS, | DROLL ADVENTURES, | PLEASING STORIES, [thin vertical double-line dividing two columns of text] | ENTERTAINING NOVELS, | COMIC CHARACTERS, | FACETIOUS HISTORIES, | AFFECTING EXAMPLES, | STRIKING REMARKS, | POINTED SATIRES, & c. & c. | Entirely calculated to form in the Mind | the most virtuous Sentiments: | AND | Adapted to promote a love of Virtue and an | abhorrence of Vice. | [horizontal centered line] | A twofold gift in this my volume lies, | It makes you merry, and it makes you wise. PHAEDRUS. | [horizontal centered double-line] | LONDON: | Sold by R. NEWTON, J. MURDELL, M. | COOPER, and D. MIDWINTER. | MDCCLXXVIII. 192p. 12mo.
Contents: frontispiece, A1v title, A2r-A3v preface, A4r-H12v text.
Notes: British Library Copy. Epigram on title page: “A twofold gift in this my volume lies, / It makes you merry, and it makes you wise” (Phaedrus). Frontispiece: A young woman sits at the base of a tree, which is half fertile and half barren. From the right, an aged man approaches with a cane and above the young woman, there is a flying cupid. Preface, p. 3-6, notes: ‘[Collection is] both exceeding useful and pleasant’ (4). ‘But however unlucky the fate may have been of mutilated authors, in ancient times, no abridgments or extracts from good writers can, in these our days, put an end to them. Since the divine art of printing hath been found out, they will endure even unto the universal conflagration of this terrestrial globe’ (4-5). ‘Now facts, making an impression upon [the readers’] imagination, render them necessarily attentive; and are better suited to their capacity, than precepts, which moreover always leave the auditor cold and tranquil’ (5). Book-plate of British Museum to indicate ownership on p. 102 or H12v. Marginalia: 1/6 or F/T scribbled and an underline of ‘Connoisseur’ on title page; horizontal strip of decoration in top margin on title pages of individual stories (A2r, A4r, A6v, A10r, B6r, B8r, B10v, B12r, C1r, C2r, C6r, C7v, C10r, D1v, D7r, D9v, E11r, E12r, F6v, F9r, G2v, G3r, G5r, G6r, G8r, G9r, H1r, H3r, H5r, H7r, H8r, H9r, H11r).
Endowing each item in the collection The Sentimental Connoisseur, or, Pleasing and Entertaining Novelist with a new frontispiece drawn from the canon of twentieth-century visual art, Dina Zingaro’s deliberate anachronism – an eighteenth-century work of fiction with twentieth-century frontispieces - amplifies the already complex, ambiguous metaphorical relation between The Sentimental Connoisseur’s own original frontispiece and its fragmentary contents.