Books and Manuscripts

Drummond, William
Poems, By That most Famous Wit, William Drummond of Hawthornden
London: Printed by W(illiam).H(unt). and are to be sold in the Company of Stationers, 1656. First octavo edition. 8vo. (xiv), 208 pp.; with four sectional title-pages, but continuous pagination; without the rare dedication leaf to John Scot that "occurs in very few copies" (Grolier). Edited by Edward Phillips. Illustrated with an engraved portrait of Drummond by R(ichard). Gaywood. Full brown calf, stamped in gilt; all edges gilt; title-page repaired, with upper portion expertly restored in ink facsimile; lower fore-edge repaired, p. 19/20; small portion of fore-edge repaired, pp. 37-42; top edge trimmed close, shaving some headlines and page numbers; scattered spotting and soiling to text, especially to leaves at rear; scattered dampstaining in fore-edge; scattered marginalia; book-plate of bookseller and bibliographer Graham Pollard on front paste-down. Grolier, Wither to Prior, 300; ESTC R8599; Lowndes, p. 611

A scarce edition of the collected works of Scottish poet William Drummond (1585-1649). An edition with the imprint "printed for Richard Tomlins" was also published in 1656, from the same plates, but no priority has thus been established. Both are scarce to market, but this Hunt edition is traditionally considered the more rare of the two.