EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED ALDINE EDITION OF POPE'S POEMS, EXQUISITELY BOUND

POPE, Alexander. The Poetical Works. New York and London: (Chiswick Press), circa 1891. Three volumes. 12mo, contemporary full crimson morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines and covers with floral designs incorporating blue, green and white morocco inlays, green morocco-gilt doublures with red morocco inlays in a floral design, raised bands, watered silk endpapers, all edges gilt. $3200.

Later Aldine edition of the poems of Alexander Pope, with portrait of the poet and extra-illustrated with 15 window-mounted engravings, six hand-colored, splendidly bound in full morocco-gilt with multi-colored morocco inlays in floral designs.

"Like Dryden, much of Pope's poetry, and all of his major poems, are inextricably linked to his mastery of the heroic couplet… In Pope's hands [the couplet] could move seamlessly from pastoral to satire to epic or moral epistle and be consistently effective" (Ian Lancashire). Scholars go so far as to praise Pope's early Pastorals for introducing "a couplet style more refined and musical than any before in English versification" (DLB). Includes a memoir of the poet and such classic works as "The Rape of the Lock," the "Pastorals," and "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day." The "Aldine" edition of British poets, first brought out by the publisher William Pickering beginning in 1830, aimed to introduce scholarly editions of the classics in a smaller, more affordable format.

A splendidly bound, extra-illustrated set in fine condition.