£95
FIRST EDITION, 12mo, pp. [ii], 232. Half-title discarded. Contemporary black calf, boards bordered with triple gilt rules enclosing blind rolls and rules, spine divided by raised bands gilt, red morocco label, other compartments tooled in blind, marbled endpapers, edges gilt. A little spotting. Rubbed, particularly to edges.
The first proper collection of poems - but last lifetime original work - by Glaswegian William Motherwell (1797-1835), best remembered for his important editing of Scottish ballads but also a poet of some popularity through the decades following his untimely death. 'His essentially superstitious temperament led him to write eerie lyrics such as 'Demon Lady', 'The Madman's Love', and the fairy ballad 'Elfinland Wud'. Motherwell's range as a writer was largely confined to the morbidly romantic and sentimental... He was the first after Gray strongly to appreciate and utilize Scandinavian mythology, and his three Norse ballads are energetic yet graceful' (ODNB). This collection was reprinted in Boston in the 1840s, where it was read and admired by Edgar Allan Poe.
