The Poems of Thomas Gray - Engravings from the desing of R. Westall - 1826 (engravings mostly 1821)

The 

Poems

of 

Thomas Gray,


Embellished with engravings.
From the designs of

Rich.d Westall R.A.

******

                                                                Thomas Gray 1716 - 1771

"Thomas Gray is generally considered the second most important poet of the eighteenth century (following Alexander Pope) and the most disappointing. 

It was generally assumed by friends and readers that he was the most talented poet of his generation, but the relatively small and even reluctantly published body of his works has left generations of scholars puzzling over the reasons for his limited production and meditating on the general reclusiveness and timidity that characterized his life.

Gray's poetry is concerned with the rejection of sexual desire. The figure of the poet in his poems is often a lonely, alienated, and marginal one, and various muses or surrogate-mother figures are invoked

The typical "plot" of the four longer poems of 1742 has to do with engaging some figure of desire to repudiate it, as in the "Ode on the Spring," or, as in the Eton College ode, to lament lost innocence."

For more information on the individual poems visit the Poetry Foundation

****

The book is embellished with engravings after the desing of Richard Westall (1765–1836), an English painter and illustrator.

****

The title-page

R.Westall R.A.del.                                            W.Finden Sc.

"Be thine Despair, and sceptred Care;

To triump, and to die, are mine."

The Bard.

London:

Printed for John Sharpe, Piccadilly.

1821 

2nd title-page

 London: 

Printed for John Sharpe,

And Other Proprietors;

By C. and C. Whittingham, Chiswick.

1826

This book is available in our online store.