[Rarebooks] fa: WILLIAM COLLINS - POETICAL WORKS 1798 in a Charming Period Morocco Binding

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 29. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/qgtya4x

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

William Collins: The Poetical Works of William Collins, Enriched with Elegant Engravings. To which is prefixed A Life of the Author, by Dr. Johnson. London: Printed by T. Bensley, for E. Harding, No 98, Pall-Mall, 1798. First edition thus. Small 8vo (19 cm) in early/period full crimson levant morocco with front and rear boards decorated in gilt, page edges gilt, marbled endpapers; xiv, [2], 165, [3] pp. (contents leaf bound in after the prefatory Life); engraved vignettes. ESTC T125340.

With 19 elegantly executed engravings by Edward Harding (presumably the E. Harding for whom the book was printed) and bound in a slightly worn but very appealing contemporary morocco binding. Bumping/wear to the corners, rubbing to the joints and spine ends, some creases and darkening to the spine; intermittent toning to the leaves with a few small spots and touches of soiling; top corner of the text block slightly bumped; else clean and sound, firmly bound. Front endpapers with the small monogram booklabel and penciled comments of noted book collector Peter A. Wick. Curiously, an extra impression of p. 47 ("Ode Written in the Beginning of the Year MDCCXLVI") has been bound in at the end.

Collins (1721-1759) was a friend of many of the leading literary lights of his day, including Johnson, Goldsmith, James Thomson and Joseph Warton. Sweet-natured, amiable, and a gifted poet, he was also notoriously impecunious and indolent, and he went mad and died poor at an early age. "Until his mind gave way completely… William Collins was writing poetry of grave lyric beauty, sharing with Thomas Gray the distinction of being the greatest English lyrist of the eighteenth century" (Kunitz & Haycraft).