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10 volumes, 8vo, original brown paper-covered boards, printed paper labels on spine; corners bumped, light wear at the extremities, labels darkened, else very good and sound. Four pages of Longman ads at the back of volume I, and 2 pages at the back of volume III. "A work justly held in high estimation by all antiquaries in literature (250 copies printed) . . . The articles . . . under their separate heads of Poetry, History, &c., with a general index to the whole, give the new edition a great superiority over the first edition." - Lowndes. Brydges (1762-1837) was an English writer and genealogist, chiefly important as the editor of rare Elizabethan and 17th-century texts, He also published some significant bibliographical work, including Censura Literaria (1805-09) and Restituta; or, Titles, Extracts, and Characters of Old Books in English Literature, Revived (1814-16). "He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1795 . His first literary venture was made in March 1785, when he published a volume of poems, among which the earlier pieces are some sonnets dated 1782. A fourth and much enlarged edition of his miscellaneous poetry appeared in 1807. The volume of 1785 was coldly received, and Brydges continued to be much disheartened, even though his novels, Mary de Clifford (1792) and Arthur Fitzalbini (1798), obtained some popularity .The latter was semi-autobiographical and deeply upset his country neighbours, those book-hating squires who recognized themselves. His unpopularity, however, was probably more connected to his inability to manage his estates; he was permanently in debt, despite inheriting vast properties from both parents and his wives . He was by nature shy and proud, yet morbidly sensitive and egotistic, and being tormented by an extraordinary thirst for literary fame, he was unhappily led to mistake his delight in reading great works of literature for an evidence of his capacity to produce similar works himself" (DNB).
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