Two issues of 'The Literary Fly'.

Author: 
[Sir Herbert Croft (1751-1815), editor] 'The Literary Fly' [Christopher Etherington, bookseller, printer and typefounder, No. 25, St. Paul's Church-Yard]
Publication details: 
Number 13: 10 April 1779. Number 14: 17 April 1779. 'Printed and Published by Etherington, at No 25, opposite the South Door of St. Paul's'.
£100.00
SKU: 7551

Both issues 8vo (roughly 30.5 x 19.5 cm), 6 pp (each a loose leaf in a bifolium). Both printed on brittle watermarked laid paper. Both unbound, and stabbed as issued, and both on aged and chipped paper, but with the text clear and entire. Each issue with the title in an expansive calligraphic design. The full slug, at the bottom of the last page of both issues, reads: 'Printed and Published by ETHERINGTON, at No 25, opposite the South Door of St. Paul's (where Letters, post-paid, to the LITERARY FLY will be received). To be had also of all the Booksellers and news-carriers in Town and Country. | To be continued regularly every Saturday. [Price Fourpence.]' Issue 13 contains a letter 'To the Gentleman who drives the Literary Fly' and another 'To the Conductor of the Literary Fly'. Issue 14 mostly consists of a long untitled whimsical essay. According to Croft's entry in the Oxford DNB, ten thousand copies of the first issue of the 'Literary Fly' were 'distributed gratuitously on 18 January 1779, but the journal soon died of inanition'.