Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$331.50 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Large paper edition. Boards rubbed with some surface tears to leather, ink gift note on front flyleaf ('George Frederick James his father Frederick Dimsdale LL.D, judge of county courts. a present on his birth-day January 29th 1863.'), owner bookplate on front endpaper of each volume. 1814 Full-Leather. [xiv], 581, [5]; vii, [1], 634, [4] pp. Folio. Full black morocco, gilt titles, decorations and dentelles on turn-ins, all edges gilt. A collection of Gray's verse and other writings, including his most well-known poem, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which was originally written in 1751. This edition is notable for the facsimiles of manuscript material, engraved frontispieces in each volume, and Gray's thoughts on the philosophical writings of Plato.
Seller: Yesterday's Muse, ABAA, ILAB, IOBA, Webster, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$350.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: "With memoirs of his life and writings by William Mason. To which are subjoined extracts philological poetical and critical from the author's original manuscripts selected and arranged by Thomas James Mathias." In Two Volumes (complete). First edition, first printing, with both title pages dated 1814. Original dark-brown full-calf fine binding. Ornate gilt decoration on spines. Red and black morocco title and volume labels with gilt lettering. Gilt borders on both covers. Marbled endpapers. Huge and very heavy folio-size volumes, measuring 12" x 10" x 2". 581 and 634 text pages. Includes Gray's poems, letters and prose, with most of the prose published for the first time. Illustrated with a facsimile reproduction of Gray's original handwritten copy of "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard" taken from his manuscripts on four engraved plates, frontispiece engravings in both volumes (the first a portrait of Gray), an engraving of Gray's tomb in the churchyard of Stoke-Pugis near Windsor, and an engraving featuring vignette medallions of Gray and Mason from their cenotaphs in Westminster Abbey. In VERY GOOD condition. Light overall wear. Gilt on spine remains bright and mostly unworn. Light chipping to the red leather title label on Vol. I and the black leather volume label on Vol. II. Vol. II has a one-inch-long thin scrape in the leather at the center of the front spine joint and an adjacent two-inch repair to the leather on the front board. There are a few small repairs to the leather surfaces elsewhere. Otherwise excellent. Tightly bound, sturdy and square with no cracking to the joints or hinges. Nearly flawless interiors. Pages are all bright and clean with just typical light age-toning and some offsetting from engraved plates on previous pages. No significant foxing. No stains, tears or creases. Small previous owner's antique ex-libris bookplate at top corner of first blank page of the first volume. Some bookstore notations concerning this edition in pencil on same page. Otherwise unmarked.
Seller: Odysseus Books, Orange Park, FL, U.S.A.
Price: US$1216.82 + shipping
Description: First edition edited by Thomas James Mathias (1753-1835). "Mathias derived considerable knowledge of Thomas Gray from the Revd Norton Nicholls, on whose death in 1807 Mathias composed a letter of eulogy. Mathias was a beneficiary of Nicholls's will. In 1814 he published an edition of The Works of Thomas Gray in two quarto volumes, with substantial prose extracts from Gray's manuscripts, under the sponsorship of Pembroke College. At 7 guineas it could not compete with the cheap editions by John Mitford and others and it 'sank with the weight of lead upon the market' (Dibdin, 732), causing Mathias some personal loss" (ODNB). The lavishness of the production - finely printed and wide-margined - may have priced it out of the market at the time, but ensures it remains a most desirable edition of Gray's works. 2 volumes, quarto (293 x 233 mm). Contemporary russia, green morocco labels, spines gilt to compartments, covers with gilt ruled border, gilt turn-ins, dark green endpapers, gilt edges. Engraved frontispieces, 3 other plates. Light sunning to spines, very minor chip at foot of spine of vol. II, joints cracked as often for russia of this date but still holding, offset from plates, light foxing to initial and final leaves, but generally clean. A handsome copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom