Finely Bound Copy of R. Calder Campbell's Endymion
Endymion: A Poetic Romance.
London: for Taylor and Hessey, 1818.
Price: $8,500.00
About the item
First edition, first issue. ix, [3], 207 pp. Half-title with imprint on verso reading "Printed by T. Miller, Noble street, Cheapside," dedication leaf, single erratum on page [xi]. Lacking ads at end. 8vo. Full brown morocco, sides with triple gilt rule, spine elaborately gilt in compartments, gilt inner dentelles, a.e.g. by Riviere. Old manuscript tribute to Keats on verso of dedication, and ownership signature to title page. Fine. MacGillivray A2; Ashley III:13; Hayward 232; Tinker 1419. Provenance: George Merryweather (bookplate); Robert Calder Campbell, his ownership signature.
Item #311573
First edition, first issue, of the second of only three lifetime publications by Keats, comprising his longest single sustained poem, famous for its opening line: "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". This copy has the first issue imprint to the verso of the half-title "Printed by T. Miller, Noble Street, Cheapside" and the one-line erratum leaf.
From the collection of Major Robert Calder Campbell (1798-1857), a former soldier in the Indian army, a minor writer whose fame has not followed his influence down through the years, as he was a literary mentor to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and introduced the young Pre-Raphaelite to Keats’ poetry. From there, Campbell's Keats books entered into the collection of inventor George Merryweather (1794-1870).
