Details
[SOUTHWELL, Robert (1561?-1595)]. Saint Peters Complaint, With other Poemes. London: [J.Windet for] John Wolfe, 1595.
Small 4° (178x126mm). Collation: A-I4 K2. Title within border of typographic ornaments, surrounding a woodcut printer's device [McKerrow 294], 23 woodcut headpieces, one above each poem, and one vignette. (Sidenote on B2 shaved.) 19th-century brown straight-grained morocco gilt (spine rubbed), edges gilt. Provenance: the dedication 'The Authour to his louinge Cosen' is signed in manuscript 'Your loving Cosen Robert Southwell' in a contemporary hand, taken presumably from a circulating manuscript copy; Cardiff Castle bookplate.
Second or third edition, a piracy, issued immediately following the first edition published by Cawood in April of the same year. Southwell, as a Jesuit, was executed in 1595 and his poems, which had widely circulated in manuscript, were printed within two months of his death. They were extremely popular and subsequently went through numerous editions; all early ones are very rare. STC 22957 (records only three copies: Trinity College Cambridge, Huntington Library and the present); Grolier Langland to Wither 220-222 describes only three later editions; Pforzheimer 963 has only a 1616 edition; even Hayward's catalogue of the exhibition English Poetry (1947) no.32, has only a 1607 edition.
Small 4° (178x126mm). Collation: A-I4 K2. Title within border of typographic ornaments, surrounding a woodcut printer's device [McKerrow 294], 23 woodcut headpieces, one above each poem, and one vignette. (Sidenote on B2 shaved.) 19th-century brown straight-grained morocco gilt (spine rubbed), edges gilt. Provenance: the dedication 'The Authour to his louinge Cosen' is signed in manuscript 'Your loving Cosen Robert Southwell' in a contemporary hand, taken presumably from a circulating manuscript copy; Cardiff Castle bookplate.
Second or third edition, a piracy, issued immediately following the first edition published by Cawood in April of the same year. Southwell, as a Jesuit, was executed in 1595 and his poems, which had widely circulated in manuscript, were printed within two months of his death. They were extremely popular and subsequently went through numerous editions; all early ones are very rare. STC 22957 (records only three copies: Trinity College Cambridge, Huntington Library and the present); Grolier Langland to Wither 220-222 describes only three later editions; Pforzheimer 963 has only a 1616 edition; even Hayward's catalogue of the exhibition English Poetry (1947) no.32, has only a 1607 edition.