“THE POET OF HUMANKIND”

BYRON, (George Gordon) Lord. The Poetical Works. London: John Murray, 1866. Ten volumes. Small octavo, contemporary three-quarter red morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards, endpapers and edges. $2200.

Later edition of Lord Byron’s collected verse, with engraved title page and frontispiece in each volume (many after works by J.M.W. Turner), handsomely bound.

"Byron is to a far greater degree than the other romanticists the poet of humankind. He conveys with tremendous power the majesty and desolation of history, the vanity of pomp and pride, the transitoriness of fame. And he is the poet of contemporary society, keen to discern the false and the corrupt, courageous in denunciation yet with pity for the young and innocent… As a poet he mirrored brilliantly and without distortion an absorbingly interesting world" (Baugh, 1229). This uniformly and handsomely bound set features an engraved frontispiece in each volume, many after the works of J.M.W. Turner. "Without specific reference to the poetry, Turner's Venetian paintings exalt Byron's 'fairy city of the heart' as dreamed through the painter's intoxication with light and water" (Eisler, 758). Lowndes, 338. Bookplates.

Only slightest occasional rubbing to extremities. A near-fine set, handsomely bound.