1662 Poems by John Cleavland (Cleveland). London, Shears. William Fowler Hopson artist ex-libris plate

This edition was first printed just after Cleveland's death and was reprinted a handful of times, likely due to popularity (1st edition in 1659, this one 1662). This copy with a bookplate executed by the celebrated bookplate artist William F Hopson after a design by R.M. Crosby; copies of this plate have been exhibited and the plate is listed as #29 in his catalogue (The Book-plates of William Fowler Hopson, 1910). The bookplate was executed for the Yale professor of English (and author of Early Tudor History) John Milton Berdan.

Cleveland was an English poet Royalist known for his political satire. The Britannica calls him the most popular poet of his time, and states "his conceits are profuse and cosmetic... and his use of heroic couplets foreshadowed that of Dryden.

Bibliographic Details -

Worldcat OCLC catalogue numbers 4722796, 557798783, 165934501 and 771455595. Strangely, not one of the catalogue numbers lists a corresponding copy; perhaps the entries were all withdrawn from the catalogue entry of The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature (Lowndes) who calls out the editions of Shears.

USTC is down on the day when I'm posting this.

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 9.5 x 14 x 1.75 cm. Signed in eight. Calf binding. Boards with outer frame of two fillets in blind with corner florets. Spine with four raised bands; three compartments with central gilt floret, two with author and “Poems” in gilt, and year in gilt at base of spine. Frontis illustration of Cleavland.

Pages – frontis, title page leaf, 1-235 [1], (4)

Collation – A-P8, *2

Condition -

Binding with little wear, some ring marks visible. Text block top edge darkened. Endpaper renewed, ex-libris reapplied. Some chipping to edges of first several leaves. Text block toned throughout; occasional page edge chip, thumb, rust spot, dog-eared page, candle ember mark, ink spot, etc. Title page and frontis illustration with some ink marks. Underlining on page 4. Annotation written on page 89. Underlining of 112-118. 165-172 underlined. Annotations at bottom of table. Last two leaves edge chipped.