Lot 270
Pope, Alexander
Rare Books, Maps & Manuscripts
Auction: Rare Books, Maps & Manuscripts
Description
Windsor-Forest: to the Right Honourable George Lord Lansdown. London: Bernard Lintott, 1713. First edition, folio, olive green polished morocco, gilt arms of Sir Robert Abdy, Bart. within a gilt oval border, blind ruled panelling, with blind tooled ornaments at the corners, very neat repair to the titlepage (possibly removing earlier ownership inscription), titlepage also very slightly foxed, lower margins very slightly cropped touching footnotes and one catchword
Footnote
Note: Griffith 9; Foxon P987; Rothschild 1567. Contains, according to Mack (Collected in himself, Newark, 1982, p. 18) one of the most execrated bit of verse in English poetry:
"See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crowned,
Here blushing Flora paints the enamelled ground …"
Nevertheless, Pope rescued the earlier section of the poem from his own juvenilia: the conclusion, with its prophecy of free trade following the Peace of Utrecht, adds a new political dimension. Within Windsor forest "our oaks," a symbol of national identity , flourish.
Provenance: with the armorial bookplate of Sir Robert Abdy, Bart.