![MARKHAM, Gervase (1568?-1637). The Famous Whore, or Noble Curtizan: conteining the Lamentable Complaint of Paulina, the Famous Roman Curtizan, sometimes Mes vnto the Great Cardinall Hypolito, of Est. London: N. O[kes] for John Budge, 1609.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2006/CKS/2006_CKS_07300_0535_000(113237).jpg?w=1)
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MARKHAM, Gervase (1568?-1637). The Famous Whore, or Noble Curtizan: conteining the Lamentable Complaint of Paulina, the Famous Roman Curtizan, sometimes Mes vnto the Great Cardinall Hypolito, of Est . London: N. O[kes] for John Budge, 1609.
4° (175 x 121mm). Small woodcut device on title, with the initial blank. (Repaired worming as far as D3 with slight damage to headlines and top rule, top rule in A4 partly cropped and headlines of last 2 leaves shaved, title a little soiled, light discolouration.) Blue morocco by Zaehnsdorf, inner gilt turn-ins, lower edges uncut.
THE RARE FIRST EDITION of one of seven poems by Markham and the last to be published in his lifetime. It tells the story of Paulina who, after having lost her virginity at an early age, was 'sold' by her mother to Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este. For many years she lived a happy life as the Cardinal's mistress and after his death increased her fortune even more while, at the same time, maintaining a front of complete respectability. Eventually undone by her infatuation for a younger man who leaves her penniless she is finally ruined when her daughter on whom she had pinned all her remaining hopes married a workman. The poem ends with Paulina's warning to the young to avoid the vices which had destroyed her own life. This is probably Markham's most successful foray into verse, a medium that even he realised was probably beyond him, observing in the preface to his Poem of Poems, 1596, 'At length, finding Nature an enemy to mine Arte, denying mee those affections, which in others make more then immortall the most earthly imaginations: I betook mee to Diuinitie'. Poynter says of The Famous Whore, 'its...rhyming couplets have been much polished and smoothed to make it one of Markham's most finished performances in verse. It is also one of the most satisfying as narrative, for there are no digressions, few intrusive comments, and little or none of the complicated classical allusion which spoils his earlier work'. Poynter 7.1; STC 17359 (locating this and 3 other copies).
4° (175 x 121mm). Small woodcut device on title, with the initial blank. (Repaired worming as far as D3 with slight damage to headlines and top rule, top rule in A4 partly cropped and headlines of last 2 leaves shaved, title a little soiled, light discolouration.) Blue morocco by Zaehnsdorf, inner gilt turn-ins, lower edges uncut.
THE RARE FIRST EDITION of one of seven poems by Markham and the last to be published in his lifetime. It tells the story of Paulina who, after having lost her virginity at an early age, was 'sold' by her mother to Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este. For many years she lived a happy life as the Cardinal's mistress and after his death increased her fortune even more while, at the same time, maintaining a front of complete respectability. Eventually undone by her infatuation for a younger man who leaves her penniless she is finally ruined when her daughter on whom she had pinned all her remaining hopes married a workman. The poem ends with Paulina's warning to the young to avoid the vices which had destroyed her own life. This is probably Markham's most successful foray into verse, a medium that even he realised was probably beyond him, observing in the preface to his Poem of Poems, 1596, 'At length, finding Nature an enemy to mine Arte, denying mee those affections, which in others make more then immortall the most earthly imaginations: I betook mee to Diuinitie'. Poynter says of The Famous Whore, 'its...rhyming couplets have been much polished and smoothed to make it one of Markham's most finished performances in verse. It is also one of the most satisfying as narrative, for there are no digressions, few intrusive comments, and little or none of the complicated classical allusion which spoils his earlier work'. Poynter 7.1; STC 17359 (locating this and 3 other copies).
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