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Details
GOWER, John (ca 1325-1408). De Confessione Amantis. Edited by Thomas Berthelet. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1554.
2o in sixes (264 x 185 mm). Gothic type. Title within woodcut border (McKerrow & Ferguson 26), several woodcut initials. (A few head-lines shaved, some pale browning and staining.) 18th-century calf (upper cover detached, lower cover starting). Provenance: Victor Albert George Child Villiers, Earl of Jersey, Osterley Park (bookplate).
Third edition, after Caxton's first of 1483 and Berthelet's second of 1532. This is a paginary reprint of the second edition, with some corrections, except for the compression of the preliminary leaves which occupy two leaves fewer. Johnson wrote in his Dictionary: "He that reads the works of Gower will find smooth numbers and easy rhymes, of which Chaucer is supposed to have been the inventor, and the French words, whether good or bad, of which Chaucer is charged as the inventor." Pforzheimer 422; STC 12144.
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Third edition, after Caxton's first of 1483 and Berthelet's second of 1532. This is a paginary reprint of the second edition, with some corrections, except for the compression of the preliminary leaves which occupy two leaves fewer. Johnson wrote in his Dictionary: "He that reads the works of Gower will find smooth numbers and easy rhymes, of which Chaucer is supposed to have been the inventor, and the French words, whether good or bad, of which Chaucer is charged as the inventor." Pforzheimer 422; STC 12144.