Books and Manuscripts

Thomson, James
The Seasons 
London: printed for P.W. Tomkins, 1797. Deluxe edition. Folio. Letterpress by T. Bensley and types by V. Figgins. Illustrated in black and white with engraved frontispiece, six engraved plates, four engraved vignettes, and 10 engraved head- or tail-pieces, by Francesco Bartolozzi and Tomkins after William Hamilton. Full contemporary blue straight-grain morocco, elaborately stamped in gilt, scattered scratches on front board, light wear along joints and extremities, corners worn; edges in alternating marbled and gilt; marbled endpapers; armorial book-plate of Charlotte Mary Peters on front paste-down; moderate foxing to title-page. Abbey, Life 252; Brunet V, 836; Cohen/de Ricci p. 992; Lowndes IV, p. 2671

A fine deluxe edition of Thomson's famed poem in a magnificent contemporary binding, with stipple-engravings from two of the greatest engravers of their time, Francesco Bartolozzi and Peltro William Tomkins. Thomson's paean to the countryside and the simple country life is now seen as a precursor of the romantic movement in English poetry, as exemplified by Wordsworth and Coleridge. The present edition, published the year before the appearance of the Lyrical Ballads, is perhaps the most luxurious edition of The Seasons ever published.