[Rarebooks] FS: Chatterton's Great Forgery, 1778, price greatly reduced

[Charles Agvent]

Price reduced:     Was $350,      Now $250

CHATTERTON, Thomas. POEMS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AT BRISTOL, BY 
THOMAS ROWLEY... London: T. Payne, 1778. Third Edition. Octavo, xxvii, 
333 pages. Modern cloth-backed boards. Half title present. Illustrated 
with one plate. One of the great literary "forgeries," the mythical 
Thomas Rowley was created by Chatterton shortly after he began writing 
poetry at the incredible age of 11. The manuscript was not published 
until seven years after Chatterton's death and sparked a controversy 
over the authenticity of the poems, caused in large part by critics who 
could not believe that such expertly crafted poems could have come from 
a half-educated apprentice barely in his teens. Samuel Johnson called 
him "the most extraordinary young man that has encountered my 
knowledge," and Keats dedicated ENDYMION to his memory. He was admired 
by Coleridge, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Rossetti who said that he had 
"Shakespeare's manhood in a boy's wild heart." Walking with a companion 
in a London churchyard one day, the impoverished Chatterton stumbled 
into a newly dug grave. His friend came to his rescue and, attempting to 
make light of the matter, claimed he was glad to be present at the 
resurrection of a genius. Chatterton replied: "I have been at war with 
the grave for sometime, and I find it not so easy to vanquish it as I 
imagined. We can find an asylum to hide from every creditor but that." 
Three days later, three months shy of his eighteenth birthday, he 
destroyed all of his manuscripts, swallowed arsenic, and paid his debt. 
The next day he was shoveled into a pauper's grave. Owner signature of 
Ambrose Grant dated 1784, Litchfield, CT, on the title page. Covers 
slightly soiled, old dampstain to top margin. Very Good.

This edition includes an APPENDIX CONTAINING SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE 
LANGUAGE OF THE POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO ROWLEY; TENDING TO PROVE, THAT THEY 
WERE WRITTEN, NOT BY ANY ANCIENT AUTHOR, BUT ENTIRELY BY THOMAS 
CHATTERTON. (#003133)        $250.00


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