About this Item
First Edition (NAP, M.DCC.LI. on the title page). Once listed, this will be the Only original copy of this book for sale anywhere on the Internet. This book is missing both the front and rear cover. Oddly enough the spine is well attached and in pretty decent condition. The first front end paper is detached. More importantly, the rest of the pages, beginning with the title page, are quite solidly bound, nicely tight from beginning to end. As you can see from the photos, the half-title page has a loss at its top corner. It has also pulled away from the binding a little bit over the last inch off the bottom edge (see photo). There is a evenly cut loss off the top edge of the title page not quite reaching the lettering (see photo). But there is a small loss through half of the letter 'O' in 'Poems'. The general condition of the pages is pretty decent. They are nicely supple, not stiff. They have what I would describe as light foxing, a good many pages have none at all. I've been scrolling through the pages and I found some with losses. In one instance it's a full-page that is missing, page 299-300. Page 107-108 has a loss off the top edge that doesn't quite reach the print. Page 203-204 has a larger loss off its middle edge cutting out some of the words. Page 243-244 has a loss off its middle edge that takes out a few letters on page 244. Pages 257-258 and 269-270 have losses off their top corners which don't reach the print, and page 357-358 has a loss off its bottom corner which doesn't reach the print. The book ends with three Contents pages. The last has a small loss off the middle edge far from the print. I saw only one tear. It's off the top edge of page 259-260, a little less than an inch. I don't think there any other tears or losses. It's possible I missed a couple, but it's not that difficult to find them because, as I mentioned, the pages are nicely supple. It sometimes difficult to characterize the relative cleanliness of a book when some foxing is present, but my impression is that, absent the foxing, there is not a great deal of soiling. Curiously, there is very little creasing, nothing is standing out to me as I scroll again through the pages. I would emphasize that I feel no caution in doing this scrolling. Despite the fact that the covers are missing, the pages do not feel in the least bit fragile, and the same goes for the binding. There are no markings, no stampings, anywhere in the book. No attachments (of course that would be unlikely without covers), and no one has written their name or anything else anywhere in the book. Let me amend that: the detached front end paper has, in an old handwriting style, the words 'Poems on mor' and then stops there. I'll do the same. Take a look at the photos. Seller Inventory # 002929
Contact seller
Report this item
