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The Seasons. J Thomson.

The Seasons. J Thomson.

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The Seasons. J Thomson.

by James Thomson

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Red calf binding, Gilt lettering and banding on the spine.

The Seasons is a series of four poems written by the Scottish author James Thomson. The first part Winter was published in 1726, and the completed poem cycle appeared in 1730. The poem was extremely influential, and stimulated works by Joshua Reynolds, John Christopher Smith, Joseph Haydn, Thomas Gainsborough and J. M. W. Turner. Thomson was educated first at the Parish school of Southdean then at Jedburgh Grammar School and Edinburgh University where he was a member of "The Grotesques" literary club; some of his early poems were published in the Edinburgh Miscellany of 1720. Seeking a larger stage, he went to London in 1725, and became the tutor of Thomas Hamilton (who became the 7th Earl of Haddington) in Barnet. There he was able to begin Winter, the first of his four Seasons. Blank verse had been considered more of an interesting toy than anything useful to poetry, despite John Milton's epic-scale Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained half a century earlier. The poem was published one season at a time, Winter in 1726, Summer in 1727, Spring in 1728 and Autumn only in the complete edition of 1730. Thomson borrowed Milton's Latin-influenced vocabulary and inverted word order, with phrases like "in convolution swift". He extended Milton's narrative use of blank verse to use it for description and to give a meditative feeling. The critic Raymond Dexter Havens called Thomson's style pompous and contorted, remarking that Thomson seemed to have avoided "calling things by their right names and speaking simply, directly, and naturally". The lengthy blank verse poem, reflecting on the landscape of the countryside, was highly influential and much liked for at least a century after its writing. Especially lavish editions were produced between 1830 and 1870 in Britain and America. A dispute over the publishing rights to The Seasons gave rise to two important legal decisions (Millar v. Taylor; Donaldson v. Beckett) in the history of copyright. In 1750, the London bookseller Andrew Millar reprinted the 1746 edition of The Works of James Thomson vol. 1. and included a prefatory note that emphasized the author's preference for the 1746 edition. Millar may have referred to the 1744 edition because it was the first expanded version of Thomson's famous poem, it sold quickly, and it may have helped to clarify for Millar that he owned the highly valuable copyright of this book in perpetuity. Thomas Macklin included an extract from Autumn in his Poet's Gallery. The painting which used his wife, daughter and Jane Potts as models was created by Joshua Reynolds and then it was engraved, and prints were sold. Thomson's The Seasons was translated into German by Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1745). This translation formed the basis for a work with the same title by Gottfried van Swieten, which became the libretto for Haydn's oratorio The Seasons. Artists such as Thomas Medland, Anker Smith and John Neagle (1792) created engravings to accompany the poems. A bathing scene from Summer inspired paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, William Etty (Musidora: The Bather 'At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed') and Johann Sebastian Bach the Younger. The piece was translated into French by the naturalist Joseph-Philippe-François Deleuze (1753–1835). Oscar Wilde included this poem, only half-sarcastically, in a list of 'books not to read at all'. THE EDITIONS

  • The four seasons, and other poems.By James Thomson. London: printed for J. Millan, near Scotland-Yard, White-Hall; and A. Millar, in the Strand, M.DCC.XXXV., 1735. [2];77,[3];64;72;79,[1]p., plates; 8⁰. (ESTC T83; Foxon T242; OTA K019862.000)
  • Patrick Murdoch (ed.), The Works of James Thomson, with his last corrections and improvements, prefixed by an account of his life and writings(Royal Quarto edition, A. Millar, London 1762); Dublin printing by John Exshaw, 1767; Murdoch's revised 4-volume edition of (A. Millar and T. Cadell, London 1768), with Lord Lyttelton's annotations, and 1772-3 edition (R. Clarke, Edinburgh 1772), (W. Bowyer, etc., London 1773) and subsequent versions.
  • Thomson, James & Bloomfield, Robert,The Seasons & Castles of Indolence / The Farmer's Boy, Rural Tales, Banks of the Wye, &c. &c., (London: Scott, Webster & Geary, 1842).
  • Gilfillan, Rev. George, Thomson's Poetical Works, with Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes, Library Edition of the British Poets (1854).
  • Thomson, James. The Seasons(A. Donaldson, Edinburgh 1774; J. Donaldson, London 1776).
  • Thomson, James. The Seasons, by ... A New Edition. Adorned with A Set of Engravings, from Original Paintings. Together with an Original Life of the Author, and a Critical Essay on the Seasons. by Robert Heron, (Perth: R. Morison, 1793).
  • Thomson, James The Seasons and Castle of IndolencePrinted for J. and F.C. Rivington and the other proprietors, James Marsh, 1820
  • Thomson, James. Poems, edited by William Bayne, London: Walter Scott Publishing Co., [1900], (Series: The Canterbury poets).
  • Thomson, James. The Seasons, edited with introduction and commentary by James Sambrook, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) ISBN0-19-812713-8.
  • Thomson, James. Liberty, The Castle of Indolence and other poems, edited with introduction and commentary by James Sambrook, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) ISBN0-19-812759-6.
  • Bayne, William, Life of James Thomson, Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1898, ("Famous Scots Series").

James Thomson (c. 11 September 1700 – 27 August 1748) was a British poet and playwright, known for his poems The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence, and for the lyrics of "Rule, Britannia!". James Thomson was born in Ednam in Roxburghshire around 11 September 1700 and baptised on 15 September. He was the fourth of nine children of Thomas Thomson and Beatrix Thomson (née Trotter). Beatrix Thomson was born in Fogo, Berwickshire and was a distant relation of the house of Hume. Thomas Thomson was the Presbyterian minister of Ednam until eight weeks after Thomson's birth, when he was admitted as minister of Southdean, where Thomson spent most of his early years. Thomson may have attended the parish school of Southdean before going to the grammar school in Jedburgh in 1712. He failed to distinguish himself there. Shiels, his earliest biographer, writes: 'far from appearing to possess a sprightly genius, [Thomson] was considered by his schoolmaster, and those which directed his education, as being really without a common share of parts'. He was, however, encouraged to write poetry by Robert Riccaltoun (1691–1769), a farmer, poet and Presbyterian minister; and Sir William Bennet (d. 1729), a Whig laird who was a patron of Allan Ramsay. While some early poems by Thomson survive, he burned most of them on New Year's Day each year. Thomson entered the College of Edinburgh in autumn 1715, destined for the Presbyterian ministry. At Edinburgh he studied metaphysics, Logic, Ethics, Greek, Latin and Natural Philosophy. He completed his arts course in 1719 but chose not to graduate, instead entering Divinity Hall to become a minister. In 1716 Thomas Thomson died, with local legend saying that he was killed whilst performing an exorcism. At Edinburgh Thomson became a member of the Grotesque Club, a literary group, and he met his lifelong friend David Mallet. After the successful publication of some of his poems in the "Edinburgh Miscellany" Thomson followed Mallet to London in February 1725 in an effort to publish his verse. In London, Thomson became a tutor to the son of Charles Hamilton, Lord Binning, through connections on his mother's side of the family. Through David Mallet, by 1724 a published poet, Thomson met the great English poets of the day including Richard Savage, Aaron Hill and Alexander Pope. Thomson's mother died on 12 May 1725, around the time of his writing 'Winter', the first poem of ''The Seasons''. 'Winter' was first published in 1726 by John Millian, with a second edition being released (with revisions, additions and a preface) later the same year. By 1727, Thomson was working on Summer, published in February, and was working at Watt's Academy, a school for young gentlemen and a bastion of Newtonian science. In the same year Millian published a poem by Thomson titled 'A Poem to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton' (who had died in March). Leaving Watt's academy, Thomson hoped to earn a living through his poetry, helped by his acquiring several wealthy patrons including Thomas Rundle, the countess of Hertford and Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot. He wrote Spring in 1728 and finally Autumn in 1730, when the set of four was published together as The Seasons. During this period he also wrote other poems, such as to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and his first play, Sophonisba (1730). The latter is best known today for its mention in Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets, where Johnson records that one 'feeble' line of the poem – "O, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!" was parodied by the wags of the theatre as, "O, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O!". In 1730, he became tutor to the son of Sir Charles Talbot, then Solicitor-General, and spent nearly two years in the company of the young man on a tour of Europe. On his return Talbot arranged for him to become a secretary in chancery, which gave him financial security until Talbot's death in 1737. Meanwhile, there appeared his next major work, Liberty (1734). This is a lengthy monologue by the "Goddess of Liberty", describing her travels through the ancient world, and then English and British history, before the resolution of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In 1738 his tragedy Agamemnon was played at Drury Lane and the following year he wrote a prologue when Mallet's Mustapha was performed there. In 1740, he collaborated with Mallet on the masque Alfred which was first performed at Cliveden, the country home of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Thomson's words for "Rule Britannia", written as part of that masque and set to music by Thomas Arne, became one of the best-known British patriotic songs – quite apart from the masque which is now virtually forgotten. The Prince gave him a pension of £100 per annum. He had also introduced him to George Lyttelton, who became his friend and patron. In later years, Thomson lived in Richmond upon Thames, and it was there that he wrote his final work The Castle of Indolence, which was published just before his untimely death on 27 August 1748. Johnson writes about Thomson's death, "by taking cold on the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which, with some careless exasperation, ended in a fever that put end to his life". He is buried in St. Mary Magdalene church in Richmond. A dispute over the publishing rights to one of his works, The Seasons, gave rise to two important legal decisions (Millar v. Taylor; Donaldson v. Beckett) in the history of copyright. Thomson's The Seasons was translated into German by Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1745). This translation formed the basis for a work with the same title by Gottfried van Swieten, which became the libretto for Haydn's oratorio The Seasons.

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Bookseller
Martin Frost GB (GB)
Bookseller's Inventory #
FB720 /4A
Title
The Seasons. J Thomson.
Author
James Thomson
Book Condition
Used - Fine
Quantity Available
1
Binding
Hardcover
Publisher
G Robinson.
Place of Publication
London
Date Published
1799
Size
11 x16 x3.5cm
Weight
0.00 lbs

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Martin Frost

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