Poems on Several Occasions. With Some Select Essays in Prose.

London: J. Tonson and J. Watts, 1735.

Price: $450.00


About the item

First collected edition. Engraved portrait frontispiece in vol. I, three engraved plates in vol. II. [xx], lxxv, [i], 275. 2 vols. 12mo. Contemporary Cambridge calf, red morocco spine labels, edges red. Wear to joints and extremities, some light staining, worming to vol. I last dozen leaves touching letters. ESTC T146605.

Item #308077

First collected edition, published posthumously by subscription and edited by Hughes' brother-in-law William Duncombe. Hughes (1678?–1720), writer, editor, translator and librettist, was associated with the Steele-Addison circle of wits and contributed articles to the Tatler and Spectator. His translation of Letters of Abelard and Heloise (1713) was the basis for Pope's poem, and he edited the first critical edition of Spenser (1715). As a librettist, Hughes championed the use of English lyrics, and he contributed librettos to a host of English cantatas and operas, including works by Pepusch and Handel. "Here Hughes's practical musical and poetic skills made him the most qualified librettist of his day" (ODNB). He died young of tuberculosis on the opening night of his most successful and enduring work, The Siege of Damascus.