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Here begynneth the egloges of Alexander Barclay. [London: Humfrey Powell, c.1548].
Details
BARCLAY, Alexander (c.1475-1552)
Here begynneth the egloges of Alexander Barclay. [London: Humfrey Powell, c.1548].
Extremely rare early edition of Barclay’s influential Eclogues, credited with introducing the pastoral to English poetry. ESTC locates just seven other copies and RareBookHub records no copy at auction since 1974.
Believed to have been born in Scotland, Alexander Barclay is best known for his translation of Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, published in 1509 by Richard Pynson as The Ship of Fools. His Eclogues, too, had an important influence on English literature of the 16th-century and beyond, laying the formal foundations for pastoral verse in the language, a tradition which would include seminal works such as Edmund Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender (1579).
The first three of Barclay’s five eclogues are adapted from De curialium miseria, a treatise composed in the 1440s by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) on the misery of courtiers. ‘In other words, Barclay takes a work that is not at all pastoral (along either ecclesiastical or classical models) and fashions it into eclogues. The final two eclogues adapt Mantuan’s fifth and sixth eclogues, on the poet-patron relationship and the contrast between the country and the town, respectively’ (Little). Critics have been at pains to stress that Barclay’s work is therefore not strictly a translation from Piccolomini, rather he ‘selected whatever seemed desirable to him, placed it in an English setting, and adapted it for English readers’ (Schultz), with particular attention paid to the ‘labour as well as the poverty of his shepherds’ (Little).
The history of the early editions of this work is not well established, but it would appear that the first edition was published by Wynkyn de Worde around 1515. Other editions or part-editions are recorded at Southwark and Cambridge in subsequent years, and some bibliographies refer to editions by Pynson and Herford, before the present edition of c.1548. ESTC S104480; Katherine C. Little, ‘The Invention of the English Eclogue’, Transforming Work: Early Modern Pastoral and Late Medieval Poetry, 2013, pp. 49–82; John Richie Schultz, ‘The Method of Barclay's Eclogues’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Oct., 1933), pp. 549-571.
Quarto (180 x 130mm). Title within woodcut border [McKerrow & Ferguson 16] (bookplate removed from title verso, title and upper edge of final lead slightly dust-soiled, faint waterstain to upper edge in first few leaves, spotting at beginning and end, two small wormholes throughout). 18th-century panelled calf (rebacked and recornered in morocco). Provenance: Liverpool Atheneaeum (binding and ink stamps).
Here begynneth the egloges of Alexander Barclay. [London: Humfrey Powell, c.1548].
Extremely rare early edition of Barclay’s influential Eclogues, credited with introducing the pastoral to English poetry. ESTC locates just seven other copies and RareBookHub records no copy at auction since 1974.
Believed to have been born in Scotland, Alexander Barclay is best known for his translation of Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, published in 1509 by Richard Pynson as The Ship of Fools. His Eclogues, too, had an important influence on English literature of the 16th-century and beyond, laying the formal foundations for pastoral verse in the language, a tradition which would include seminal works such as Edmund Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender (1579).
The first three of Barclay’s five eclogues are adapted from De curialium miseria, a treatise composed in the 1440s by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) on the misery of courtiers. ‘In other words, Barclay takes a work that is not at all pastoral (along either ecclesiastical or classical models) and fashions it into eclogues. The final two eclogues adapt Mantuan’s fifth and sixth eclogues, on the poet-patron relationship and the contrast between the country and the town, respectively’ (Little). Critics have been at pains to stress that Barclay’s work is therefore not strictly a translation from Piccolomini, rather he ‘selected whatever seemed desirable to him, placed it in an English setting, and adapted it for English readers’ (Schultz), with particular attention paid to the ‘labour as well as the poverty of his shepherds’ (Little).
The history of the early editions of this work is not well established, but it would appear that the first edition was published by Wynkyn de Worde around 1515. Other editions or part-editions are recorded at Southwark and Cambridge in subsequent years, and some bibliographies refer to editions by Pynson and Herford, before the present edition of c.1548. ESTC S104480; Katherine C. Little, ‘The Invention of the English Eclogue’, Transforming Work: Early Modern Pastoral and Late Medieval Poetry, 2013, pp. 49–82; John Richie Schultz, ‘The Method of Barclay's Eclogues’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Oct., 1933), pp. 549-571.
Quarto (180 x 130mm). Title within woodcut border [McKerrow & Ferguson 16] (bookplate removed from title verso, title and upper edge of final lead slightly dust-soiled, faint waterstain to upper edge in first few leaves, spotting at beginning and end, two small wormholes throughout). 18th-century panelled calf (rebacked and recornered in morocco). Provenance: Liverpool Atheneaeum (binding and ink stamps).
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