"With memoirs of his life and writings by William Mason. To which are subjoined extracts philological poetical and critical from the author's original manuscripts selected and arranged by Thomas James Mathias."
Printed by William Bulmer and Co., Shakspeare Press, for John Porter, Bookseller to Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte, in London, in 1814.
In Two Volumes (complete). First edition, first printing, with both title pages dated 1814.
Includes Gray's poems, letters and prose, with most of the prose published for the first time.
Original dark-brown full-calf fine binding. Ornate gilt decoration on spines. Red and black morocco title and volume labels with gilt lettering. Gilt borders on both covers. Marbled endpapers. Huge and very heavy folio-size volumes, measuring 12" x 10" x 2". 581 and 634 text pages.
Illustrated with a facsimile reproduction of Gray's original handwritten copy of "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard" taken from his manuscripts on four engraved plates, frontispiece engravings in both volumes (the first a portrait of Gray), an engraving of Gray's tomb in the churchyard of Stoke-Pugis near Windsor, and an engraving featuring vignette medallions of Gray and Mason from their cenotaphs in Westminster Abbey.
In VERY GOOD condition.
Light overall wear. Gilt on spine remains bright and mostly unworn. Light chipping to the red leather title label on Vol. I and the black leather volume label on Vol. II. Vol. II also has a one-inch-long thin scrape in the leather at the center of the front spine joint and an adjacent two-inch repair to the leather on the front board. There are a few small repairs to the leather surfaces elsewhere. Otherwise excellent. Tightly bound, sturdy and square with no cracking to the joints or hinges. Nearly flawless interiors. Pages are all bright and clean with just typical light age-toning and some offsetting from engraved plates on previous pages. No significant foxing. No stains, tears or creases. Small previous owner's antique ex-libris bookplate at top corner of first blank page of the first volume. Some bookstore notations concerning this edition in pencil on same page. Otherwise unmarked.
About Thomas Gray from Wikipedia:
"Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751.
"Gray was a self-critical writer who published only 13 poems in his lifetime, despite being very popular. He was even offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1757, though he declined. His writing is conventionally considered to be pre-Romantic but recent critical developments deny such teleological classification."
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