RELIQUES of ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY by THOMAS PERCY/HENRY B.WHEATLEY/3 BOOKS/1927

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RELIQUES OF ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY: CONSISTING OF OLD HEROIC BALLADS, SONGS AND OTHER PIECES OF OUR EARLIER POETS TOGETHER WITH SOME FEW OF LATER DATE. BY THOMAS PERCY. EDITED, WITH A GENERAL INTRODUCTION, ADDITIONOAL PREFACES, NOTES, GLOSSARY, ETC. BY HENRY B. WHEATLEY. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I, II & III. THREE BOOKS. London : George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1927 [1885]. Scarce.A set of three solid and attractive scarce books. Published nearly 90 years ago, this edition is now long out of print and hard to find.From the Editor's Preface: "IN undertaking the supervision of a new edition of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, I felt that no safer or better guidance could be followed than that of Bishop Percy himself; and as the always strove, in the several editions published by himself, to embody therein the sum of the knowledge of his times, so I, following at a distance, have endeavoured, by gathering from many quarters particulars published since his death, to make his book still more worthy of the great reputation it has acquired. Each edition published during the lifetime of the author contained large additions and corrections; but since the publication of the fourth edition, in 1794, no changes worth mentioning have been made, with the exception of such as occur in a revision brought out by the Rev. R. A. Willmott in 1857. His object, however. was to form a handy volume, and he therefore cleared away all Percy's Essays and Prefaces, and added short notices of his own, founded on Percy's facts, and, in some instances, on recent information. The desire for anew edition of the Reliques has more particularly grown since the publication of the original folio MS. in 1867, and I trust that the readers fo the some degree satisfying this desire..."According to Wikipedia: "The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (sometimes known as Reliques of Ancient Poetry or simply Percy's Reliques) is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Bishop Thomas Percy and published in 1765 ... Ballad collections had appeared before but Percy's Reliques seemed to capture the public imagination like no other. Not only would it inspire poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth to compose their own ballads in imitation, it also made the collecting and study of ballads a popular pastime. Sir Walter Scott was another writer inspired by reading the Reliques in his youth, and he published some of the ballads he collected in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The more rigorous scholarship of folklorists would eventually supersede Percy's work, most notably in Francis James Child's Child Ballads, but Percy gave impetus to the whole subject. The book is also credited, in part, with changing the prevailing literary movement of the 18th century, Neo-Classicism, into Romanticism. The classicist Augustans took as their model the epic hexameters of Virgil's Aeneid and the blank verse of John Milton's three epics. The Reliques highlighted the traditions and folklore of England seen as simpler and less artificial. It would inspire folklore collections and movements in other parts of Europe and beyond, such as the Brothers Grimm, and such movements would act as the foundation of romantic nationalism. The Percy Society was founded in 1840 to continue the work of publishing rare ballads, poems and early texts..."---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Three Thick Octavo - sized hardcover books; [xcvii + 460] + [vii + 397] + [vii + 423] pages of text. Very Good conditions: no torn or missing pages; no writing or markings in the text; signature on front pastedown of vol. i. Original hardcover bindings, with some wear, and scuffing along some edges. A set of three solid and attractive books.Please look through my other auction listings- I have listed many scarce and unusual books this week on ebay. Please bid on more than one book, because I will be happy to reduce shipping costs for multiple purchases; media mail postage is $5 for this listing, and $1... read more

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