James Cummins Bookseller

London: Smith, Elder & Co.; Cambridge, [Printed at the University Press], 1858, 1877.

Price: $2,250.00

About the item

First editions. iv, 116; [ii], [48] pp. 1 vols. Small 8vo. Original green cloth. Spine and board edges faded. Very good plus. Ionica II in blue drab wrappers as issued. Morocco backed slipcase and cheise. Timothy d'Arch Smith, Love in Earnest: Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English ‘Uranian’ Poets from 1889 to 1930, pp. 4-11, 246-7; Young, The Male Homosexual in Literature, 813; Colbeck I, p. 161; Carter, A Hand-List of the Printed Works of William Johnson, 84-5; Hayward 275 (ref.).

Item #345338

Original editions of the rare poems of William Johnson Cory (1823-1892), one of the precursors of the Uranian Poets, was master at Eton from 1845 to 1872. He had “not only the superficial renown of being a born teacher, but a less palatable, deeper-seated reputation of a wayward personality who ‘was apt to make favourites’. … Despite his meticulous preparation of lessons, his liberal ideas on education and his sensible and far-sighted tenet that the French language should be as compulsory as Latin in the curriculum, he was politely but firmly asked to resign.” Cory's poems were collected in a single volume in 1891 and it was in this form that his poetry became known to the Uranian Poets, prominent among which were several of his former pupils.