Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry. [UTTERSON (Edward Vernon)].

Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry: Re-published Principally from Early Printed Copies, in the Black Letter.

Woodcut headpieces.

Two volumes. 8vo. [193 x 120 x 44 mm]. xviii, [ii], 190, [2] pp; [3]ff, 236, [2] pp. Bound in near contemporary straight-grained green goatskin, the spines divided into six panels by raised bands, lettered in gilt in the second and third and dated at the foot, red endleaves, gilt edges. In a later slipcase.

London: printed by T. Davison, for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817

A fine copy. The striking red endleaves are watermarked "Rye Mill 1821". With the bookplate of Charles Porter and booklabel of John Porter.

The first edition of Utterson's principal work, of which only 250 copies were printed. The pieces re-published are: "Syr Tryamour", "Syr Isenbras", "Syr Degore", "Syr Gowghter", "The Hye Way to the Spyttell Hous", "The Schole House of Women", "The Defence of Women", "The Proude Wyues Pater Noster", and "The Wife Lapped in Morels Skin". In the Preface Utterson remarked: "The rigid moralist of the present day may perhaps feel inclined to censure the phraseology of some of these latter poems as occasionally swerving from the language of decency". At the end of the second volume he supplied a Glossary.

Stock no. ebc9151