Beschreibung:

TAYLOR, John, The Water Poet (1580-1653). All the Workes of Iohn Taylor the Water Poet: Being Sixty and three in Number. Collected into one Volume by the Author . London: J[ohn] B[eale, Elizabeth Allde, Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett] for James Boler, 1630. 2 o (284 x 193 mm). Elaborate engraved title by T. Cockson incorporating an oval portrait of Taylor and a small scene of his Thames River boat, letterpress title with first word in woodcut frame (McKerrow & Ferguson 229), numerous woodcut ornaments, head- and tail-pieces, A Memoriall of All the English Monarchs (pp.268-294) with 155 small woodcut portraits (generally 28 x 25 mm); A Briefe Remembrance of All the English Monarchs , pp.295-321 featuring 25 larger, column-width standing woodcut portraits; several other miscellaneous woodcuts. (Slightly over half the preliminary blank A1 excised preserving ownership inscription, marginal tear to 2N3, 2N4 with paper-flaw affecting three words in three lines, projecting portion of one larger regent woodcut cropped at fore-margin, scattered light browning.) Late 17th- or early 18th-century polished calf, covers with blind-rolled borders of volutes and interlaces, spine gilt in six compartments, gilt-lettered morocco label in one, edges sprinkled red (neatly rebacked at an early date, original spine preserved, the leather at joint torn in two places); quarter red morocco slipcase. Provenance : Thomas Hearne (1678-1735), the author and antiquary (brief inscription and signature "Thos. Hearne 1732") on portion of preliminary blank) -- J. Eliot Hodgkin (bookplate) -- purchased from Seven Gables Bookshop, New York, 14 February 1969. FIRST COLLECTED EDITION of the extensive comical and poetical works of Taylor, a Thames boatman, Oxford innkeeper and by all odds the most exhuberant and prolific versifier of the Elizabethan period. His efforts, most issued in pamphlet form, which include Wit and Mirth (a very early collection of 138 jests), various travelogues in verse, accounts of odd characters like the "Great Eater of Kent," burlesques of Thomas Coryate (a letter, supposedly from Agra, in "the Dominion of the Great Mogul"), "The Praise of Clean Linnen," and such rollicking doggerel as "Laugh and Be Fat," "Pluto's Proclamation concerning his Infernall pleasure for the Propagation of Tobacco" ("Let every idle addle-pated gull with stinking sweet Tobacco stuff his skull..."), and others. At pp.171-176 appears Taylor's The True Cause of the Watermen's Suit Concerning Players, and the Reason that their Playing on London Side is their extream hindrance , an account of the 1613 dispute between the Thames boatmen and the players of London, mentioning the Globe, Rose and Swan theaters. Taylor's account was evidently issued as a pamphlet, but no copy is recorded (Lowe, Arnott and Robinson, English Theatrical Literature 1559-1900 , no.140). Prefatory verses include one by Thomas Dekker ("To my friend John Taylor"). Grolier Wither to Prior 862; Pforzheimer 1006; STC 23725. A FINE COPY, WITH AN INTERESTING PROVENANCE.