Lamb's first play and Mary's first appearance in print
John Woodvil A Tragedy. ... To which are Added, Fragments of Burton.
London: Printed by T. Plummer, Seething-Lane for G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster-Row, 1802.
Price: $1,200.00
About the item
First edition. [iv], 128 pp. 1 vols. Sm. 8vo. Lamb's first play and Mary's first appearance in print. Uncut in publisher's gray-green boards, rebacked to style. In custom red morocco-backed slipcase. Roff, pp. 47-52. Provenance: John Gutch (holograph transcription of Lamb's "What is an Album?" on rfep); Robert S Pirie (bookplate).
Item #304321
Pages 106-7 contain Mary Lamb's poem "Helen", her first appearance in print. At the end are some "Curious Fragments extracted from a common-place book" ascribed to Robert Burton, which are in fact by Lamb. Regarding "Helen," Charles Lamb writes, in a letter to Coleridge: "How do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing, nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very elegant and very original, I shall be tempted to name the author to you. I will just hint that it is almost or quite a first attempt."
This copy owned by John Matthew Gutch (1776-1861), Lamb's contemporary, schoolfellow and lifelong friend, and proprietor of “Felix Farley's Bristol Journal”, in which some Lamb writing appeared.
