James Cummins Bookseller

London: Printed for Robert Raworth, 1636.

Price: $3,000.00

About the item

First edition of this very rare poetical miscellany, including contributions by Drayton, Jonson, Randolph, Feltham, Heywood, and many others. Engraved (facsimile) frontispiece depicting the Cotswold Games. Robert Dover, founder of the games, is on horseback, carrying a wand. [34] leaves (of 35 or 36). Small quarto. Celebrating The Cotswold Games. 19th-century quarter morocco and boards (spine quite rubbed), an imperfect copy, with the frontispiece in facsimile, and wanting the title leaf, some foxing and tanning early and late, K1 trimmed a bit close at fore-edge, barely touching a few letters, an occasional headline slightly cropped, otherwise a reasonably good (though still imperfect) copy, the front binder's endsheet and pastedown bear some neat 19th century bibliographic annotations, a book plate, and an 1813 ownership inscription. Case 84; ESTC S111583; STC 24954; Grolier, Wither to Prior, 298.

Item #256882

Case and ESTC locate variants, the former recording a literal reprint with an added poem on K2 (not present here, and cited by Case as 84b), and the latter copies with one of three different dedicatory leaves added (none here present). The poems praise Robert Dover for his stewardship and promotion of the Cotswold Games, beginning ca. 1612, although it is unclear whether Dover actually started the event, or simply elaborated upon a more modest pre-extant celebration. The Games ended for a period in 1642, after the outbreak of the Civil War, but were revived in 1660, and persisted in forms both temperate and intemperate through 1850. A modern revival, beginning in 1965 under the sponsorship of the Robert Dover's Games Society, has been formalized. ESTC, which does not distinguish Case's reprint with the extra poem on K2, locates 9 copies of this edition in North America (including the variants), and even the early 18th century reprint (dated conjecturally 1720 by ESTC, and which features added text on the verso of A2) is uncommon. No copy at auction (until 2013 when it brought £2800)
Writing in 1972, the athletics coach and sports journalist Ron Pickering said: “The influence of English rural sports, and the work of William Penny Brookes and Robert Dover, have been significant in the development of the Olympic Games philosophy. Almost half the events in the Modern Games are historically connected to British rural sports. Therefore we have a certain arrogant claim and a responsibility to the development of the Modern Olympic Games”.