THE WORKS OF THOMAS GRAY WITH MEMOIRS OF HIS LIFE AND WRITING BY WILLIAM MASON [with] EXTRACTS PHILOLOGICAL, POETICAL, AND CRITICAL FROM THE AUTHOR'S ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS

(BINDINGS - NEOCLASSICAL). (PRINCESS CHARLOTTE AUGUSTA, HER COPY[?]). GRAY, THOMAS

Edité par Printed by William Bulmer and Co., Shakspeare Press, for John Porter . . . bookseller to the Princess Charlotte, London, 1814

388 x 275 mm. (10 7/8"). Two volumes. Extracts selected and arranged by Thomas James Mathias. STATELY CONTEMPORARY RED STRAIGHT-GRAIN MOROCCO, GILT IN THE NEOCLASSICAL STYLE, covers framed by palmette and cresting medallion roll, raised bands, spine panels with intricate ornament, gilt lettering, turn-ins framed by chain and guilloche rolls, blue endpapers, pastedowns with blind palmette frame, all edges gilt. Three engraved plates (Gray's portrait, tomb, and memorial), one four-page facsimile of the manuscript of Gray's "Elegy," and engraved tailpiece with medallion portraits of Gray and Mason. A Large Paper Copy. FRONT PASTEDOWNS WITH SMALL ROYAL EX-LIBRIS featuring a coronet and a "C P" cipher, LIKELY(?) THAT OF PRINCESS CHARLOTTE AUGUSTA (see below); front flyleaf of volume I with old pencilled note attributing ownership to the princess. Lowndes II, 931 ("the best edition"). â Spines evenly darkened to burgundy, lower corners a bit bumped, trivial external signs of use, first three leaves of volume I with a bit of offsetting from portrait, but A VERY FINE AND HANDSOME COPY, clean and fresh throughout, with enormous margins, and in a grand binding that is still lustrous and glittering with gilt. This is the ultimate copy of Thomas Gray's works: complete, with extensive editorial annotations, attractively printed on large paper, handsomely bound, and apparently with royal provenance. Best known for "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," Thomas Gray (1716-71) was primarily a scholar, a professor of Modern History and Languages at Cambridge who never became a professional or even a dedicated poet. Still, he was offered the laureateship in 1757, upon the death of Colley Cibber (he refused the honor). Gray had begun to write poetry as early as 1742, but it was not until 15 years later, after the publication of his "Poems," that he had become generally recognized as the foremost poet of the day. In the present two very substantial oversized volumes, Gray's poems take up only 65 pages. The remaining 500+ pages of volume I are taken up with the memoir written by his friend and protegé William Mason, a work that DNB notes was successful in cementing Gray's reputation. First published in 1775, it presents Gray's letters--some bowdlerized to remove the poet's more biting remarks--interspersed with Mason's (extensive) commentary. DNB notes that this format "was innovative, and is credited with introducing the 'life and letters' mode to biography. Its plan was taken up by Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791) and by a host of nineteenth-century imitators." The second volume contains Gray's scholarly essays on poetry, on Greek and Roman Classics, and on ancient India and Persia. Our copy of what Lowndes considered the "best edition" of Gray is in the deluxe large paper format, and has been bound, with considerable skill, in the Neoclassical style popularized in London by German emigré binders like Staggemeier & Welcher and Kalthoeber. The splendid format and binding certainly support the early owner's (or bookseller's) pencilled assertion that the volume belonged to Princess Charlotte Augusta (1796-1817), only grandchild of George III and heir to the British throne. Additional facts support royal provenance: the coronet on the bookplate has two outer strawberry leaves, usually signifying the grandchild of the sovereign, and Charlotte was the patron of the bookseller for whom the book was printed. Tragically, she died in childbirth before she could become queen; Britain reacted, according to a contemporary observer, "as though every household throughout Great Britain had lost a favourite child." Whether our original owner was Charlotte, this set is certainly fit for a princess. N° de réf. du vendeur ST19567-074

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : THE WORKS OF THOMAS GRAY WITH MEMOIRS OF HIS...
Éditeur : Printed by William Bulmer and Co., Shakspeare Press, for John Porter . . . bookseller to the Princess Charlotte, London
Date d'édition : 1814