£400
FIRST EDITION, LARGE PAPER COPY, PRINTED ON PINK PAPER, 4to, pp. [iv], 232. Original maroon paper boards, pink endpapers, spine lettered in silver, housed in a teal cloth clamshell case. A touch of spotting. Somewhat rubbed, joints cracking. Pencilled bibliographical reference to flyleaf.
A special copy, printed on large paper of a lovely pink colour, of 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.
The regular issue is usually called a 12mo, though signed in 8s - in any case a small volume. This copy is on 'large paper' by the expedient of rearranging the same formes to be imposed as a quarto, leaving extremely generous margins, and is furthermore distinguished by the paper being pink. The spine is labelled with the price, 12s. Lowndes records 'some copies' on large paper but does not mention the colour; Johnson also had a large-paper copy (presented by Motherwell to David Laing) with again colour unmentioned.
