Specimens of British Poetesses; Selected and Chronologically Arranged.
Place and Imprint: London: T. Rodd, 1827.
Edition: First edition, second issue; the first issue was dated 1825; this second issue has a cancel title with a slightly revised imprint dated 1827.
Bibliographical References: NCBEL III, 1644; Lowndes, page 705.
Condition: Title-page a bit dusty and smudged, but overall a very good copy.
Book ID: 28956
Physical Description
8vo, modern red cloth, red morocco spine label, gilt lettering, untrimmed. Errata slip tipped in.Comments
An early work by Rev. Alexander Dyce (1798-1869), the prolific compiler, editor and scholar. See the ODNB. In the preface, Dyce states that the "object of the present volume is to exhibit the growth and progress of the genius of our country-women in the department of poetry." He acknowledges the one earlier anthology dedicated to women poets, George Colman's and Thornton Bonnel's Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755, reprinted in 1780), but points out its deficiency in containing "no extracts from rare books and . . . specimens of only eighteen poets." Dyce assembled almost two hundred poems by 79 women, regardless of class, social standing or education, beginning with Juliana Berners and including Anne Bradstreet, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Killegrew, Aphra Behn, Mary Pix, Lady Chudleigh, Anne Finch, Susanna Centlivre, DelaRivier Manley, Mary Leapor, Eliza Haywood, Mary Robinson, Anne Yearsley, Charlotte Smith, Mary Tighe, Ann Radcliffe, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Helen Maria Williams, Anne Grant, Mary Russell Mitford, and L. E. Landon. Each entry is has a brief few lines about the poet. From the library of the great scholar of English poetry, Roger Lonsdale, though without any physical evidence of ownership.Price: $500.00