[GRAY, THOMAS] | An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard. London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1751

 [GRAY, THOMAS]

An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard. London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1751

4to (10 7/8 x 7 3/4 in.; 248 x 190 mm). Title between woodcut mourning rules, the upper rule repeated at head of poem, strong impression of "i" in "Finis"; some staining, marginal repairs. Later full tan calf by Rivière, covers with double gilt rules, spine with raised bands in six compartments, second and third gilt lettered, others with double gilt rules, turn-ins with gilt rules; minor rubbing to extremities, toning to endleaves, front free endpapers loose. In clamshell case.

First edition, the Rosenbach - Berland copy. Although Gray had circulated his Elegy in manuscript, he resisted formal publication until learning that the editor of the Magazine of Magazines, William Owen, intended to print the text and identify its author. Thus confronted, Gray advised Horace Walpole in a 12 February 1751 letter: "I have but one bad Way left to escape the Honour they would inflict upon me & therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately ... from your Copy but without my Name." The short time allowed for printing the poem accounts for the faulty presswork that affects the titles and final pages of many copies.

In an anonymous prefatory "Advertisement" to the first edition, Walpole remarked on the "general Approbation" the Elegy had already received. Publication quickly confirmed his verdict: four more Dodsley editions, as well as several unauthorized journal printings, appeared the same year, and in 1759 General James Wolfe is said to have declared of the Elegy, "I would rather be the author of that piece than take Quebec."

REFERENCE

Hayward 173; Rothschild 1056; Grolier Hundred 49

PROVENANCE

A. S. W. Rosenbach — John Flemming — Abel E. Berland (bookplate to front pastedown) — William Painter (book label to front pastedown)