Verses Occasions, Signed (4 results)

Condition: Good. No publisher, no place, no date given. ***Signed presentation copy from author dated 1921. 20p. Poems. Silkstring binding. Hardcover cloth covered boards. sm octavo. Good, cover cloth is toned and lightly soiled. Maria Mallory lived at least some years in Brooklyn, New York. Poems each celebrating something as: the signing of the Armistice Dec 18, 1918; The Silver anniversary of Mrs. Field's Literary Club; The Early Days of the Automobile, etc.

First edition. 72pp. With a half-title. Finely bound in contemporary blind-stamped, gilt-tooled navy calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece, marbled edges, marbled endpapers. Lightly rubbed, marked, and sunned. Armorial bookplate of the Bridehead estate, Dorset, to FEP, very occasional spotting. Presentation copy, inked inscription to half-title: 'Robert Williams Esquire. From the author'. The first edition of English publisher Francis Newbery's (1743-1818) collection of classical verse translations, inscribed to politician Robert Williams (1767-1847) of Bridehead, Dorset. Newbery, the son of John Newbery, a publisher himself, was most notorious for facilitating the sale of his patented James's Fever Powder, the taking of which likely caused the death of his frequent publishing client, poet Oliver Goldsmith, in a failed attempt to treat a suspected kidney infection. In response, Newbery published a lengthy defence of his medicine in an attempt to bolster its reputation. Seemingly his only published poetry collection, much of the volume's content is formed of his translations of Horace's second book of Epistles; several of his lighter compositions were set to music by English composers William Crotch and John Callcott. Not in Jackson. Size: 8vo.

4to (240 x 190mm), pp. [ii], 16, [2]; small library stamp of the Portico Libary (Manchester) on title page and p. 13; and of the Selbourne Library at foot of title verso and on p. 11; else a good copy, in new wrappers made of old paper. First and only edition of this collection of new poems by Christopher Smart, most of them published here for the only time. The people addressed include Susanna, wife of Sir John Hussey Delaval (1728-1808), who was a highly successful industrialist; and the future Earl of Mansfield (William Murray). Those commemorated in the epitaphs include Henry Fielding, with whom Smart had engaged in the paper war against Sir John Hill some ten years before. The last leaf of the book advertises two recent works by Smart, A Song to David and Poems (here confusingly entitled Poems on Several Occasions, like the present work) these had been published earlier the same year, in April and July, and the present collection appeared in November. The foot of this page is signed by Smart: Mahony and Rizzo state that every copy is so signed, but this cannot be true because there are two copies in the Rothschild collection and only one is specified as bearing his signature. The final page is a specimen of Smart's translation of the Psalms, which was not finally published until 1765. This is a rare work much rarer than the collection of 1752 with ESTC locating only fourteen copies. Just one copy is noted as being sold at auction since 1975, the Graham Pollard copy in 1978. Rothschild 1882-3. Provenance. Portico Library, Manchester (founded 1802); more recently in the collection of Hugh Selbourne, whose library was for some years on deposit at Birmingham University, but dispersed at auction in London in 2015-16.

First edition. Excellent Press, London. 1995. DW. Colour ills. throughout. SIGNED presentation copy from the author "To Gwyneth and Ieuan with best wishes Kyffin Williams" on front endpaper. A lovely clean and fresh copy in price clipped wrapper.