Cowley, Abraham

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

The Mistresse, or Severall Copies of Love-Verses. Written by Mr A. Cowley. London: Printed for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Princes Armes in St. Pauls Church-Yard, 1647
ink, paper, leather

8vo (6 3/8 x 4 in.; 153 x 100 mm). Title-page within double-ruled border, printer’s ornaments on A2 (“To the Reader”) and H5r (“Table of Heads”); oxidized hole on title-page touching “a” in “seuerall” ‘neatly repaired, D3v shaved, short tear on bottom margin of D1, light staining on E3, H4v (errata) shaved slightly affecting text, without the inserted printer’s advertisements (a⁸-b²). Eighteenth-century red morocco Cambridge-style binding with gilt ornaments, spine gilt in six compartments, marbled endpapers, edges gilt; rebacked, endpapers rubbed.

Provenance

John Keate (armorial bookplate) — John Sparrow (bookplate; Christie’s London, 21 October 1992, lot 106). acquisition: Purchased at foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

Literature

Wing C6674; ESTC R210193; Grolier/Wither to Prior 223; Hayward, English Poetry 88 (this copy). See also The Library of Beverly Chew, Anderson Galleries, 9 December 1924, lot 91 for an in-depth comparison of the issues (here called first and second editions)

Catalogue Note

First edition, first issue, with “and” in the imprint rather than an ampersand and the errata uncorrected in the text. Hayward, however, states that some of the sheets were published without the poet’s knowledge while he was in France and are found in different states. He further claims no priority exists between various states as “[t]he sheets, whether corrected or not, were gathered indiscriminately.”