Junius. Stat nominis umbra

London: Printed for T. Bensley, for Vernor and Hood, 1799. In two volumes. [8], xxxix, 274; [6], 319pp, [1]. With an additional engraved title-page to each volume and a further 21 engraved plates. Handsomely bound by McKinlay of Covent Garden in contemporary richly gilt-tooled red straight-grain morocco, A.E.G. Extremities rubbed. Marbled endpapers, binder's tickets to FFEPs, plates spotted. An attractively bound set of this particularly finely produced edition of the political letters of 'Junius' to Henry Woodfall, printer and proprietor of a periodical, The Public Advertiser. Composed between 1769 and 1772, the pseudonym masks a well-placed man within the Whig establishment during the ministry of the Duke of Grafton, British Prime Minister 1768-1770, and that of his successor Lord North. With the aim of exposing the injustices of the administration, and highlighting the rights and freedoms of British individuals, Junius attacked many individuals highly respected within the Whig firmament. Long subject to speculation, the authorship of these significant and embarrassing political letters is now generally attributed to Sir Philip Francis, a clerk in the War Office - but Thomas Paine, Edmund Burke, Benjamin Franklin and Jean Louis de Lolme have all been suggested as alternative candidates. John MacKinlay [variously spelt McKinlay] (d. 1821), bookbinder of Bow Street, Covent Garden (1774-1808), and later of Southampton Street, Strand (1808-21). In his prime he conducted one of the leading binding shops in London, and specialised in the better class of work. He was praised by Dibdin as 'the living father of the bibliopegistic art'. At the end of the eighteenth-century he employed Charles Tomlinson, described by fellow bookbinder John Jaffray (1811-1869) as 'the top Finisher of his day, and one of the select few who was paid 24s., one guinea being the usual rate for a skilled workman.' The firm notably bound the Soane Museum copy of the First Folio at a cost of 60 guineas. ESTC T11034, Ramsden p.100.. 8vo.