Books

First edition, one of 25 copies "printed on large paper for Private Circulation only", preceded only by a private printing in 1869, this copy in a fine contemporary binding by Riviere. The events leading up to the publication of Poems are notorious: when the poet's wife Elizabeth Siddal died in February 1862, Rossetti placed the original manuscripts of his poems in her coffin, burying them with her in Highgate Cemetery. When he began composing new poems in 1869, he secretly exhumed the manuscripts of his earlier poems from her grave and published them the following year. The collection opens with "The Blessed Damozel", Rossetti's most famous poem, and also includes "Dante at Verona", "A Last Confession", "My Sister's Sleep", and a number of early sonnets. Provenance: from the library of Sir Steuart Colvin Bayley (1836-1925), with his ownership inscription dated 26 November 1870 on the first blank. Bayley, a civil servant and colonial administrator in India, served variously as the commissioner of Chittagong, Patna, and Assam; as the lieutenant-governor of Bengal; and as the political secretary to the India Office. He was made GCSI in 1911. Bayley was also "a widely read man and an insightful and often humorous literary critic", who "served on the committee of The Athenaeum from 1900 to 1920 and was its chairman for five years. He was also chairman of the Royal Society of Arts from 1906 to 1908" (ODNB). Hayward 283; Tinker 184. Octavo (221 x 144 mm). Contemporary dark green morocco by Riviere, spine with five raised bands, lettered in gilt to second compartment, board edges and turn-ins richly tooled in gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Joints and extremities lightly worn, covers slightly marked, contents clean. A very good copy.