Miscellaneous poems By Andrew Marvell, Esq; late Member of the Honourable House of Commons
London: Printed [by Simon Miller?] for Robert Boulter, at the Turks-Head in Cornhill, 1681.
Price: $32,000.00
Folio: 32.5 x 21.2 cm. [4], 116, 131-9, [1] pp. Collation: [A]2, B-C2, D-Q4, R1, S1, T2-4, U1, X1. With the added portrait frontispiece. The thirteen suppressed leaves with the poems to Cromwell, R2-T1 and U2-X2, have been replaced by the cancels, S1 and X1, as usual.
FIRST EDITION.
An untrimmed copy, bound in later marbled wrappers. The leaves are crisp, broad-margined, and have deckled edges throughout. Minor marginal tears and scattered minor stains, largely confined to the outer edge of the closing leaves. Final leaf with small losses in the blank margin. Ink stain in the blank margin of the title and portrait plate. The portrait leaf working loose. Marbled wrapper worn.
A very special copy of a book almost always found trimmed and rebound (and frequently lacking the portrait.) The pinholes from the original stab-stitching are visible in the gutters of the leaves. The marbled sheet that serves as the wrapper was lined, probably in the 20th c. and it is possible that the book was inserted into the wrapper at that time. An exceptional survival.
The “Miscellaneous Poems” marks the first appearance of the majority of Marvell’s poems, including “The Match”, a metaphysical poems which shows Marvell’s strong affinities with Donne; the country house poem, “Upon Appleton House”; and Marvell’s most celebrated poem, “To His Coy Mistress”, one of the most celebrated lyric poems in the English language.
The letter “To The Reader” states “that all these Poems, as also the other things in this Book contained, are Printed according to the exact Copies of my late dear Husband, under his own hand-Writing, being found since his Death among his other Papers.” The letter, signed “Mary Marvell” is now known to have been written by Marvell’s house-keeper, Mary Palmer.
The Suppression of the Cromwellian Poems:
“As first printed the collection included three long poems in honor of Cromwell... At some stage in publication it was decided to suppress these three poems and the leaves containing them were cancelled.”(Allison p. 51) The thirteen suppressed leaves, R2-T1 and U2-X2, were replaced by the cancels, S1 and X1. The leaves with the Cromwellian poems are preserved in only two copies (both incomplete): the Dobell-Thorn Drury-British Library and Huntington.