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The Third Edition. Hard cover, 12mo, 3 volumes (complete). Bound in modern quarter-calf fine binding over marbled paper-covered boards, with five raised bands to the spine, rolled in gilt, the volume numbers within oval blind stamped surrounds. Title to red onlaid label in second compartment, with author name in the third. Spines have five raised bands with maroon title labels and lettering in gold. Top edge stained. Stone-colored end papers and binder's flies. Printed on laid paper. Wood engraved illustrated frontis is signed S. Wale English illustrator, draftsman, and painter, (ca. 1721-1786) Engraved by C. Grignion, London engraver (1717-1810) (COLLATION: lxxviii [4] 376 [2] pp; iii [1] 404 [2] pp; xxxix [1] 359 [1] pp. CONDITION: Near Fine. Boards are about fine, and fresh-looking, with tight binding. Text block is Near Fine with some age-toning and the occasional foxing or light crease. Small indentation to some pages in volume I, perhaps from time of printing. Overall a very pleasing set. ** COMPILER & EDITOR Bishop Thomas Percy (1729-1811), after gaining a doctorate in divinity from Cambridge University, did not immediately find a position in the church, so took to writing books to earn an income. His first work was "Hau Kiou Choaan, or The Pleasing History" (1761), the first known publication of a Chinese novel in English. After a few other Chinese works, Percy was encouraged by his friends, including Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, to publish the English ballads he had been collecting. These became the influential "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry", first published in 1765. ** The "Reliques" collect many famous English ballads, for example: "The Ancient Ballad of Chevy-Chase", "Robin Hood" and "Guy of Gisborne", "Sir Lancelot du Lake", "King Leir and his Three Daughters", "Ulysses," "Syren", "The Witch of Wokey", "Alcanzar and Zayda, a Moorish Tale", "Sir Aldingar", "K. Edward IV and the Tanner of Tamworth", "Hardyknute. "A Scottish Fragment", "Little John Nobody", "Fair Rosamond", "Old Tom of Bedlam", "Admiral Hosier's Ghost", "Legend of Sir Guy", "St. George and the Dragon", and many more. ** In publishing (and sometimes embellishing) ancient ballads, Percy was following the trend started by Scottish poet James Macpherson, who compiled (and composed) ancient Gaelic ballads into the works, "Fragments of Ancient Poetry" (1760) - later known as "The Poems of Ossian". These ballads were to influence writers of the Romantic movement, including Sir Walter Scott, who published his Scottish collection of ballads as "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" in 1802. ** Percy was was ordained as Bishop of Dromore in County Down in 1782, a position he held until his death in 1811. OCLC 868260468, general edition. Watson 243. On Artists: see Getty edu ULAN 500022805 and 500020329.
Ref: POEMEW 9296
$395.00