Drayton, Michael

Folio (9 1/2 x 5 3/4 in.; 241 x 146 mm). Title page within double-ruled border, with the poem titles arranged in a complex system of brackets, engraved portrait of Drayton signed in the plate by William Hole on verso of title-page, additional engraved title-page incorporating figures representing epic, lyric, satirical and pastoral poetry (this version not recorded in Johnson), six separate divisional title-pages ("England's Heroicall Epistles"; "Idea"; "Odes"; "The Legends of the Robert, Duke of Normandie"; "The Owle"; and "Pastorals")  within double-ruled borders and woodcut printer's device (McKerrow & Ferguson 368 on the first four 376 on the last two), woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces; worm trails in quires O–R touching headlines, closed tear on P4 affecting text, R1r lightly inked and completed by hand; V4 stained, X2 paper flaw touching about three letters, worm trail in quires Y–2D touching chiefly catchwords, long tear on Z2 touching nine lines of text.  Eighteenth-century polished calf, the spine in six compartments with raised bands flanked by gilt rules, lettering-piece in second compartment, plain endpapers, edges sprinkled red; joints dry, lettering piece-chipped.

Thomas Brodhurst, Corpus Christi College Cambridge (signature on pastedown dated 1818) — David and Lulu Borowitz (library ticket on pastedown and sale, Sotheby's New York, 9 November 1977, Part I, lot 83). acquisition: Purchased at foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch, 2008.

STC 7222.3; ESTC S121618; Hayward 44; Pforzheimer 307. See also  B.E. Juel-Jensen, "'Polyobion,' 'Poemes Lyrick and pastorall,' 'Poems 1619,' 'The Owle,' and a few other Books by Michael Drayton" in The Library, Fifth Series, VIII:3, September 1953, pp. 155–157 

Folio (9 1/2 x 5 3/4 in.; 241 x 146 mm). Title page within double-ruled border, with the poem titles arranged in a complex system of brackets, engraved portrait of Drayton signed in the plate by William Hole on verso of title-page, additional engraved title-page incorporating figures representing epic, lyric, satirical and pastoral poetry (this version not recorded in Johnson), six separate divisional title-pages ("England's Heroicall Epistles"; "Idea"; "Odes"; "The Legends of the Robert, Duke of Normandie"; "The Owle"; and "Pastorals") within double-ruled borders and woodcut printer's device (McKerrow & Ferguson 368 on the first four 376 on the last two), woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces; worm trails in quires O–R touching headlines, closed tear on P4 affecting text, R1r lightly inked and completed by hand; V4 stained, X2 paper flaw touching about three letters, worm trail in quires Y–2D touching chiefly catchwords, long tear on Z2 touching nine lines of text. Eighteenth-century polished calf, the spine in six compartments with raised bands flanked by gilt rules, lettering piece in second compartment, plain endpapers, edges sprinkled red; joints dry, lettering piece chipped.
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First folio edition, first issue (before correction of the misprint "Swethwicke"), "the poet's definitive version of what he thought of importance in his literary output ... It was printed (by W. Stansby) under Drayton's immediate supervision, and is one of the most attractive books of the period" (B.E. Juel-Jensen). For this edition, Drayton revised "The Barons Warres"; added ten new sonnets to the "Idea"; and extensively altered the" Odes."

The fragment on pages 65–208, of "The Battaile of Agincourt" (1627) bound at the end omits the title poem but includes all the uncollected shorter poems except the last of the "Elegies" (pages 209–218).