All the Workes of John Taylor, The Water Poet, Being Sixty and Three in Number. Collected into One Volume by the Author, With Sundry New Additions, Corrected, Revised, and Newly Imprinted.
Place and Imprint: London: Printed by J. B. for James Boler, 1630.
Edition: First edition.
Bibliographical References: ESTC S117734; STC 23725; Pforzheimer 1006.
Condition: A lightly washed copy with the following repairs: engraved title-page and one leaf (Mmm5, pages 139-40) skillfully remargined, with slight loss of a few letters on the final two lines on page 140; fore-edges occasionally trimmed close, without loss; binding a little rubbed at the hinges and edges; remains of a bookseller's description on the front free endpaper; overall a fine copy.
Book ID: 29102
Physical Description
Folio, late 19th century full olive morocco by Riviere, gilt rules, decorations, spine lettering, and gilt ornamental wreath on the boards, a.e.g. Engraved title-page by Thomas Cockson and numerous woodcuts in the text.Comments
The collected works of a colorful member of the London literary scene in the late 16th and early 17th centuries – not a major figure, but an extraordinary one. John Taylor (1578-1653) moved in the circles of Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, Thomas Coryate, George Wither, Thomas Dekker, and Samuel Daniel, among others. His background was modest, and by trade he was a waterman on the Thames, ferrying passengers across the river from the city to the Bankside, but he was also a poet, satirist, pamphleteer, self-promoter, adventurer, and traveller. He published over 150 titles, usually in the ephemeral format of a broadside or pamphlet, in prose and verse and on an array of subjects: comic narratives about London characters, rhyming squibs on the travails of everyday life, mock eulogies, panegyrics upon himself, anagrams, sonnets, narratives of real and imaginary travels, invectives at rival poets and writers, politics and low-life, etc. In 1630 Taylor proudly arranged to have his works collected in the handsome folio format that previously had been used only for three other English authors - Daniel, Jonson, and Shakespeare – thus placing himself in select company. Whether or not All the Workes collected all of Taylor’s works to 1630 is in question, and he continued to publish almost until his death in 1653, little of which has been collected in any format. All the Workes itself was not reprinted until almost 250 years after this first edition. Robert Southey in his Lives of Uneducated Poets (London, 1836) wrote that the first poet to overcome the unfavorable obstacles of a poor education and humble beginnings “was John Taylor, the Water-Poet, a man who has long been more known by name than by his writings.” ¶ Copies of Taylor’s All the Workes are difficult to find in the marketplace in an unsophisticated state, and this copy bears some evidence of repairs. See below. But it is also has very good provenance. On the front paste-down is the bookplate of collector Kenneth Rapoport, with his catalogue slip laid in, which states “Purchased from Seven Gables 9/22/77 @ $1040.” A note on the verso updates it value as of 2004 to “$3-4000.”.Price: $6,500.00