Il Pastor Fido [A Copy Known to Voltaire?]

A copy known to Voltaire? Certainly a book highly recommended by the philosopher and this copy, acquired and owned by his English friend, Sir Everard Fawkener, perhaps on Voltaire's direct recommendation.

Prettily bound in red morocco with gilt spine decoration, rubbing to corners and upper cover. Sir Everard Fawkener’s bookplate folded across the two pages of the tiny marbled front endpapers. all edges gilt. Number ‘633’ possibly in Fawkener’s hand to verso of endpaper and further pencil numbers opposite. An engraved title page precedes the letterpress title page; pp 256 and 7 plates.

Fawkener was an English merchant and diplomat who met Voltaire in Paris in 1725 and kept up a warm correspondence for decades. Voltaire dedicated his tragedy Zaïre to Fawkener in 1733 and stayed with the Englishman in his Wandsworth home in south London in 1726. Voltaire wrote of this work: 'toute l'Europe savait et sait encore par coeur cent morceaux du Pastor Fido'. Is it too much to imagine that Fawkener acquired this copy on his distinguished friend’s recommendation?

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