Lovelace, Richard

Estimate

2,000 - 3,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Lovelace, Richard
Lucasta: Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c. To which is added Aramantha, a Pastorall. Tho. Harper, 1649
Paper

small 8vo, FIRST EDITION, title printed in red and black, frontispiece and one plate by William Faithorne after Sir Peter Lely, later state of leaf B2 (reading "Wars" in the heading), table of contents at end, contemporary sheep, collector's red chemise and red morocco case, binding with some cracking and delamination, binding repaired at edges, some browning

Provenance

John Whipple Frothingham, bookplate

Literature

Wing L3240; Grolier Wither to Prior 528; Hayward 97; Pforzheimer 627

Catalogue Note

Despite publishing only one volume of poetry - Lucasta - during his lifetime, Lovelace was one of the period's foremost cavalier poets. A devoted supporter of the King, the notoriously handsome Lovelace exhausted his considerable fortune in "by furnishing men with horse and arms... Also by furnishing his two brothers for the king's cause" (Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1813), vol. 3, col.460-463), and found himself incarcerated on two occasions, firstly in the Gatehouse at Westminster and then in Peterhouse. Although Lucasta was published a month after his second release, the poems were probably not written written while imprisoned since the title was licensed a whole year earlier.