Patmore, Coventry

8vo, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED TO JOHN RUSKIN ON A SHEET TIPPED-IN ("John Ruskin | with Coventry Patmore's | affectionate regards"), note on upper paste-down "From John Ruskin's Oxford Library 1880"), 10pp. separately paginated poems at the end with divisional title, original cloth, paper label, slightly rubbed, spine faded, upper hinge slightly cracked, some offsetting

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where appropriate
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

An expanded edition of the Odes, 1868, AND GENERALLY REGARDED AS PATMORE'S FINEST VOLUME OF POEMS ("...among the finest odes in English after the Romantics": Oxford DNB). Ruskin, once a pupil of Emily Patmore’s father, became a lifelong friend of Patmore, who shared his enthusiasm for architecture. He was an admirer of Emily Patmore and encouraged their talented artistic daughter Bertha.

"The .. loss, of his first wife, Emily, became the starting place of his major poetic work, the uneven but often masterful, sometimes sublime, elegiac odes of The Unknown Eros. Its publication history is characteristically complex; the majority of the work was first published in 1868 as Odes and was then revised and republished with additions under its later title in 1877, 1878, 1879, and 1886. In the final version, book I revisits the grief and restages the loss of his wife as a universal in particular, with powerful yet easily comprehensible odes such as ‘The Azalea’ treading close to emotional excess. Book II in the Dantesque/Petrarchan tradition moves from love of God's creation to the higher love of God. Yet in a more specific tradition of Catholic mysticism, Patmore counters the binary produced by this motion by insisting on the sensuous relation of man to God, thus making sexual love not a love which reaches but to dust but a step in a larger sexual relation to deity. Absence thus conjures presence out of its extreme lack. The poems are among the finest odes in English after the Romantics" (Oxford DNB)