| ||
I.
Three forms of the Mémoire Justificatif have previously been noted. The first edition was published under governmental supervision sometime between August 10, 1779, when Gibbon submitted to Lord Weymouth his "first, imperfect Essay, in this kind of Composition,"[1] and October 7, when the General Evening Post noticed its appearance in print.[2] The title-page of this edition gives no information concerning printer, publisher, or distributor. A second issue of the first edition was produced for the bookseller Peter Elmsley by the printers T. Harrison and S. Brooke. Norton (p. 30) found this issue first mentioned in the Morning Chronicle of December 24, but earlier publication seems quite certain. Gibbon wrote on October 27 that Elmsley had already "desired to print a new Edition which he has swelled by the addition of the French Manifesto."[3] This supplement entitled Exposé des Motifs de la Conduite du Roi de France, relativement à l'Angleterre was separately paginated and bound so as to precede Gibbon's pamphlet. A reputed second edition incorporating English translations of the documents was printed by Harrison and Brooke and advertised in 1780 by the houses of Davies, Longman, and Dodsley (Norton, pp. 30-31).
The true second edition appears, however, to be one which, by virtue of its extreme rarity, has escaped Gibbon's bibliographers altogether.[4] This new edition may be described as follows:
| ||