Click the images for enlargements.

•  ESTC N2497. Recent marbled-paper wrappers, front wrapper with paper title label. Lacking half-title. Title-page with lower corner neatly off, otherwise in excellent, clean condition. (3247)

Gray (1716–71) and Walpole were best of friends at Eton (two of the “quadruple alliance” along with Thomas Ashton and Richard West), became estranged when they went off to university, and reconciled as adults with Walpole taking an active role in promoting Gray's career as a poet. The two “Pindaric” odes published here for the first time are “The Progress of Poesy” and “The Bard.” “Progress” came from Gray's study of the history of poetry and was written over the span of 1751 to 1754: It “ traces the spirit of liberty and poetry from ancient Greece to medieval Italy to modern England” (DNB on-line). “The Bard” came from Gray's study of Welsh poetry and was written between 1755 and 1757: It concerns Edward's destruction of the Welsh bards and is appropriately Gothic to align nicely with Walpole's interests in that genre.

Horace Walpole (1717–97), the 4th earl of Orford, is best remembered as the author of the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto. Among bibliophiles he is also remembered for his private press, variously known as the Officina Arbutana or the Strawberry Hill Press. Walpole's almost fantastic wealth allowed him the connoisseur's luxury of maintaining this noble enterprise, which he operated in the arena of the rebirth of fine printing in Great Britain that was being carried on by the Foulis brothers, Baskerville, and others.

•  Hazen (1973 ed.), Bibliography of the Strawberry Hill Press, 1; ESTC T42023; Northrup 1; Hayward 174; Rothschild 1067.   Modern full speckled calf with modest blind tooling: binding unsigned but defintely by Bernard Middleton. All edges gilt. Without the half-title (as is often the case); title-page lightly dust-soiled and all leaves with indication of having once been folded vertically; held to the light, some leaves show old, excellent repairs along these folds and/or at edges. A lovely copy.  (29670)

•  ESTC T60812?, N6124?; Foxon H287. Removed from a nonce volume. Very good copy.

•  Publisher's cream-colored boards in original dust wrapper, cream-colored portions of jacket slightly darkened, otherwise showing only minimal shelfwear. A clean, solid copy.  (30365)

Some of the wit here is directed against the Catholic Church, and the Epigrammata was to find itself on the Index in 1654.

Binding:  18th-century tan morocco framed in triple gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped floral compartment decorations, board edges and turn-ins with gilt roll. Marbled endpapers; all edges gilt.

•  Graesse, V, 98; Willems 1051.   Bound as above; moderately rubbed with a bit of leather lost at one corner, minor spots of discoloration to covers. A few leaves with light staining confined to upper margins, otherwise clean.  (27389)