Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

RELIQUES

OF

ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY :

CONSISTING OF

Old Heroic Ballads, Songs

AND OTHER PIECES OF OUR EARLIER POETS :

TOGETHER WITH SOME FEW OF LATER DATE.

BY

THOMAS PERCY

LORD BISHOP OF DROMORE

IN THREE VOLUMES

EDINBURGH : JAMES NICHOL

M.DCCC.LVIII.

DESCRIPTION

(ii) + xcvi + 290pp + (ii)

(ii) + 318pp + (ii)

(ii) + 340pp + (ii)

Books measure 220mm x 145mm approximately.

Three volumes, very nicely bound in full contemporary light olive calf. Spine with five gilt-ruled raised bands with elaborate gilt decoration to gilt-boxed compartments, with tan and black title / volume labels. Double gilt fillet and blind-tooled borders with cornices to both boards. Nicely marbled end-papers and paste-downs. All page edges marbled.

CONDITION

In very good condition with all bindings holding firm and tight. There are a few minor surface scratches and marks, with a little rubbing and creasing to hinges, but nothing at all serious. All glit work is in very good condition indeed. Internally, pages are very clean generally with just the odd random spot or blemish, more so to later pages and end-papers.

A nicely presented three volume set of this much acclaimed work.

Please refer to the photo images for a clear indication of both condition and content.

INTERESTING

Thomas Percy (1729 to 1811) was Bishop of Dromore, County Down, Ireland. Before being made bishop, he was chaplain to George III of the United Kingdom. Percy's greatest contribution is considered to be his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), the first of the great ballad collections, which was the one work most responsible for the ballad revival in English poetry that was a significant part of the Romantic movement.

The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry set the stage not only for Robert Burns, but also for Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. The book is based on an old manuscript collection of poetry, which Percy claimed to have rescued in Humphrey Pitt's house at Shifnal, Shropshire, "from the hands of the housemaid who was about to light the fire with it." The manuscript was edited in its complete form by JW Hales and FJ Furnivall in 1867–1868. This manuscript provides the core of the work but many other ballads were found and included, some by Percy's friends Johnson, William Shenstone, Thomas Warton, and some from a similar collection made by Samuel Pepys.

The book is also credited, in part, with changing the prevailing literary movement of the 18th century, Neo-Classicism, into Romanticism. The classicist Augustans took as their model the epic hexameters of Virgil's Aeneid and the blank verse of John Milton's three epics. The Reliques highlighted the traditions and folklore of England seen as simpler and less artificial. It would inspire folklore collections and movements in other parts of Europe and beyond, such as the Brothers Grimm, and such movements would act as the foundation of romantic nationalism. The Percy Society was founded in 1840 to continue the work of publishing rare ballads, poems and early texts.