The Sorrows of Werter [i.e. Werther], a German Story; a New Edition, 2 vols. 1785

London: J. Dodsley, 1785. Hardcover. Very good. Early English language edition. 2 volumes, 12mo, 6.5 x 4 inches (16.5 x 10.2 cm), in period full tree calf, handsome gilt decorated spines, title labels in dark red, very good, most minor wear, old bookplates and ownership signature of a Mr. Gryffydd, Shrewsbury, August 29, 1786. Gryffydd was probably related to the last native-born Prince of Wales, Daffyd op Gruffydd (1238-1283). When Edward I conquered Wales in 1283, he ordered the arrest of Gruffydd. He was condemned to death, the first person known to have been tried and executed for what from that time onwards would be described as high treason against the King. Edward ensured that Dafydd's death was slow and agonising, and also historic; he became the first prominent person in recorded history to have been hanged, drawn and quartered, preceded by a number of minor knights earlier in the thirteenth century. Dafydd was dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury attached to a horse's tail, then hanged alive, revived, then disembowelled and his entrails burned before him for "his sacrilege in committing his crimes in the week of Christ's passion", and then his body cut into four-quarters "for plotting the king's death.