- 140
Wordsworth, William
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 USD
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Description
- Descriptive Sketches in Verse, Taken during a Pedestrian Tour in the Italian, Grison, Swiss, and Savoyard Alps. London: for J. Johnson, 1793
- Paper, ink, leather
4to (271 x 207 mm). A2 Errata present; title remounted, minor scattered spotting, to a few initial and final leaves. Calf-backed marbled boards to style, spine gilt, morocco label. A large copy, with some lower margins untrimmed.
First edition. Wordsworth's second book, published shortly after his Evening Walk, for which there is an advertisement on the last page; the poem is written in the same meter, heroic couplets, and printed in the same quarto format. The poet's preoccupation with nature, which marks so much of his later verse, is already evident. Wise quotes Wordsworth's later comments on his youthful effort: "Much the greater part of this poem was composed during my walks upon the banks of the Loire, in the years 1791-1792. I will only notice that the description of the valley filled with mist, beginning 'In solemn shapes,' was taken from that beautiful region of which the principal features are Lungarn and Sarnen. Nothing that I ever saw in Nature left a more delightful impression on my mind than that which I have attempted, alas, how feebly! to convey to others in these lines. Those two lakes have always interested me especially, from bearing in their size and other features, a resemblance to those of the north of England." Wordsworth never reprinted this poem in its present form; in later collections of his verse it is both revised and truncated.
Wise describes the rarity of this poem as follows: "The original 1793 quarto of Descriptive Sketches is also an extremely rare book, though not so excessively rare as it was presumed to be by Professor Knight, who stated that he was 'only aware of the existence of a single copy.' I know of fully half a dozen copies at the present moment, and other examples will doubtless be unearthed as time goes on." Since 1975 only two other copies have appeared at auction, one from the Signet Library, bound with Descriptive Sketches, which was sold to Dawson's of Pall Mall in 1979 for £6500 ($13,195), and the Bradley Martin copy, which sold in 1990 for $17,000.
First edition. Wordsworth's second book, published shortly after his Evening Walk, for which there is an advertisement on the last page; the poem is written in the same meter, heroic couplets, and printed in the same quarto format. The poet's preoccupation with nature, which marks so much of his later verse, is already evident. Wise quotes Wordsworth's later comments on his youthful effort: "Much the greater part of this poem was composed during my walks upon the banks of the Loire, in the years 1791-1792. I will only notice that the description of the valley filled with mist, beginning 'In solemn shapes,' was taken from that beautiful region of which the principal features are Lungarn and Sarnen. Nothing that I ever saw in Nature left a more delightful impression on my mind than that which I have attempted, alas, how feebly! to convey to others in these lines. Those two lakes have always interested me especially, from bearing in their size and other features, a resemblance to those of the north of England." Wordsworth never reprinted this poem in its present form; in later collections of his verse it is both revised and truncated.
Wise describes the rarity of this poem as follows: "The original 1793 quarto of Descriptive Sketches is also an extremely rare book, though not so excessively rare as it was presumed to be by Professor Knight, who stated that he was 'only aware of the existence of a single copy.' I know of fully half a dozen copies at the present moment, and other examples will doubtless be unearthed as time goes on." Since 1975 only two other copies have appeared at auction, one from the Signet Library, bound with Descriptive Sketches, which was sold to Dawson's of Pall Mall in 1979 for £6500 ($13,195), and the Bradley Martin copy, which sold in 1990 for $17,000.
Literature
Wise 2; Cornell 2; Tinker 2329