Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. With Explanatory Notes by Charles Edmonds.

CANNING, George, and others.

Published by London: for J. Wright, by W. Bulmer and Co., 1854

About this Item

A handsomely bound collection of poems published in The Anti-Jacobin, a journal founded in 1797 to commend the policies of the Pitt government and condemn the radicalism of the French Revolution. Its editor was William Gifford, and the main collaborators were George Canning, John Hookham Frere, and Charles Ellis. The original periodical appeared every Monday from 20 November 1797 to 9 July 1798. It owed much of its fame to verses written by Canning in whole or part, some of them parodies of poets who supported the opposition, including some wicked stabs at Robert Southey. A selection of the poems was first published in a single octavo volume in 1799, and Edmonds's edited version first appeared in 1852; this copy is from the second edition, "considerably enlarged" from the first. Provenance: with the armorial bookplate of one John Croft Deverell (1840-1921) to the front pastedown; this copy subsequently passed into the library of Rev. William Augustus Brevoort Coolidge (1850-1926), an American-born mountaineer, with his armorial bookplate on the front free endpaper. One of the great figures of the so-called "silver age of Alpinism", Coolidge made first ascents of the few significant peaks in the Alps that had not been climbed during the "golden age". "He first climbed there in 1865 with his aunt Meta Brevoort, one of the first female mountaineers. The two were well known for their climbs in the Dauphiné and in the Alps in winter. Coolidge gained a reputation as the 'young American who climbs with his aunt and his dog' after Christian Almer, his Swiss guide, gave him Tschingel, a beagle, in 1868" (ODNB). Octavo (175 x 115 mm). With 6 engraved plates after caricatures by James Gillray. Early 20th-century red morocco, spine with five raised bands, lettered in gilt direct in second compartment, remaining compartments and covers decorated in gilt, turn-ins gilt, blue-coated endpapers, top edge gilt, others trimmed. A few faint marks to covers, endpapers browned from turn-ins, light foxing to edges and outer leaves. A very good copy. Seller Inventory # 163208

Bibliographic Details

Title: Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. With Explanatory...

Publisher: London: for J. Wright, by W. Bulmer and Co., 1854