[Rarebooks] fa: CHARLES COTTON - POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS - To Izaak Walton, &c. - 1689

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, February 28. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/y8vgg643

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Charles Cotton: Poems on Several Occasions. London: Printed for Tho. Basset, at the George in Fleet-street; Will. Hensman and Tho. Fox, in Westminster-Hall, 1689. First edition. Small, thick 8vo (18.5 cm) in early/period speckled calf; [8], 688, 669-680, 781-784, 715-729 [i.e., 719], [1] p. (the pagination is erratic, as issued, but the register and text are continuous). ESTC R20907; Wing C6389; Pforzheimer 221.

Best known for co-authoring the piscatorial classic The Compleat Angler with his intimate friend Izaak Walton, Cotton was also a prolific poet, translator, and a writer of burlesques and just about anything else that would help him stave off financial ruin. His poems went largely unpublished until the appearance of this collection, printed two years after his death. Undervalued during his lifetime, Cotton's poetry later gained such devotees as Charles Lamb, William Wordsworth and, especially, S. T. Coleridge. The collection includes a number of poems on fishing and/or dedicated to his illustrious fishing buddy, e.g., The Angler's Ballad; The Retirement, to Mr. Isaak Walton; etc.

Spine chipped, both boards detached but present; front paste-down with the armorial bookplate of Sir Thomas Gerard, Baronet, dated 1750, surmounted by the later bookplates of Shadworth H. Hodgson and the Hodgson Bequest to Rugby School Library (no other library marks); occasional toning and damp-staining, most prominently on the first few leaves, a few scattered light spots and stains elsewhere, otherwise the contents quite clean and fresh.