"TO STRIVE, TO SEEK, TO FIND, AND NOT TO YIELD": FIRST EDITION OF TENNYSON'S 1842 POEMS, BEAUTIFULLY BOUND BY RIVIERE & SON

TENNYSON, Alfred. Poems. London: Edward Moxon, 1842. Two volumes. 12mo, 20th-century full dark green morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines and boards, all edges gilt; housed in custom chemises and slipcases. $3500.

First edition, containing some of Tennyson's best-known works, beautifully bound by Riviere & Son.

Published relatively early in Tennyson's career, the 1842 Poems was the work that first established him as one of the most important poets of his generation. "Not all the poems in the volumes were new. Volume I consisted mainly of poems previously published in 1830 and 1832, but the best of them, works such as 'Mariana,' 'The Lady of Shalott,' 'Oenone,' 'The Palace of Art' and 'The Lotus-Eaters,' had been so extensively revised in the interim as to be strikingly different. Volume II contained, with the exception of 'St Agnes' and three stanzas, 'The Sleeping Beauty,' poems never before published. Of these, 'Morte d'Artur,' 'Ulysses,' 'Locksley Hall and 'The Two Voices' are still widely judged to be among Tennyson's most distinctive achievements. Of this second volume of the 1842 Poems the poet's grandson and chief biographer observes, 'Never before or since has an English poet produced a volume treating so wide a range of subjects with such a high level of accomplishment'" (Hagen, Tennyson & His Publishers, 65-66.).

Fine condition.