Poems on Several Occasions. by [CARTER, Elizabeth] - 1776

London: John, Francis and Charles Rivington, 1776. Very Good. Third, and most comprehensive, edition. 8vo, pp. vi, 120. Half speckled calf over marbled boards, gilt ruling and red morocco title label to spine. Green ribbon marker. Decorative head and tail pieces. Front joint and nicks to spine professionally repaired, rear joint tender. Rubbed, corners bruised and worn, a little chipped. Edges browned. Two later POIs to front pastedown: 'R. A. Bell/ April 1948' and 'SFY[?]/ 5. 6. 16'. Some light foxing and tanning, offsetting from ribbon to pp. 70-71. Else, clean and tidy. Dedicated to William Pulteney, Earl of Bath from 'Eliz. Carter,' and with congratulatory verses by George, Lord Lyttleton. Includes two articles from The Rambler, nos. 44 and 100. ESTC T82899. Not particularly rare, but quite lovely. Very good. A member of the Bluestocking Circle, Elizabeth Carter (1717�1806) was a poet and classicist, friend of Johnson (and occasional editor of The Rambler), as well as an accomplished linguist. She is best known for her translation of the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus; indeed, the popularity of her rendering gave her some measure of financial independence from her father, as well as leading to her friendship with Elizabeth Montagu. Along with Bath, it was Montagu who pursued Carter to publish a second volume of poems, Poems on Several Occasions, in 1762. It included Carter's Rambler articles and two poems from her first slim volume, Poems on Particular Occasions (1738). One thousand copies of the first edition were printed and it ran to five editions in her lifetime, with the third edition of 1776 being the most comprehensive, including six new poems and an inscription (ODNB). Most of the poems are addressed to women, both Bluestocking and Kent friends. While Virginia Woolf celebrated Carter's thirst and graft for knowledge in A Room of One's Own: "George Eliot [should have] done homage to the robust shade of Eliza Carter � the valiant old woman who tied a bell to her bedstead in order that she might wake early and learn Greek," the polymath is also known for her romantic friendships with women, including Catherine Talbot and Montagu (see Faderman (1981); Easton (1998); and Lanser (2002)).