Gifford, William

The Baviad, and Mæviad

> click here to see the full size image.

by W. Bulmer, for J. Wright London 1800 Small 8vo. [166 x 100 x 20 mm]. [3]ff, [vii]-xx, 188 pp. Bound in contemporary straight-grained blue goatskin, the covers with a gilt border of a thick and thin fillet and cornerpieces of leaves etc on a studded background, enclosing a blind fillet panel with a gilt gouge used in the corners. Smooth spine divided into six panels by gilt fillets, lettered in the second and fourth panels and dated at the foot, the other panels with a gilt central ornament, the edges of the boards and turn-ins tooled with a gilt fillet, drab-endleaves, with a gilt roll used around the border on the paste-downs, gilt edges. (Joints and corners refurbished where once rubbed). Occasional light spotting but a good copy in a handsome binding. Gifford's two poetical satires on the Della Cruscan school of English poetry, which, at once silly and pretentious, began towards the end of the 18th century. The Mæviad also attacked some of the minor dramatists of the time. The Baviad was first published in 1791, The Mæviad in 1795. The titles are taken from those of two inferior poets mentioned in Virgil's Ecologues, iii.9. Gifford became editor of The Anti-Jacobin in 1797, and in 1809 the first editor of the Quarterly Review, a post he held for 15 years. This is a presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the verso of the half-title: "Wm. Gifford to John Crosse". The recipient may have been the long serving Methodist vicar of Bradford, Yorkshire (1739-1816), who has an entry in DNB. It later belonged to the bibliographer Edward Gordon Duff (1863-1924), and has his stamped initials on the front endleaf and nine lines of manuscript biographical notes about Gifford.

• GBP 300.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: ebc2483

• bookseller: George Bayntun (GREAT BRITAIN)