Author: BAYLEY, Peter
Title: Poems
Description: 1803. BAYLEY, Peter. POEMS. London: Printed for William Miller by W. Bulmer and Co. 1803. Scarce first edition. Algernon Swinburne's copy with his signature on first blank recto, with "The Pines" - his last place of residence. Owner has noted provenance under the signature. [4 pp] + 208 pp. 8vo. diced calf with gilt ornaments at edges of boards. Front board and spine detached, spine laid in. Boards are worn, edges cracked. Spine lacks label. Block sound. Bayley's verse here is a parody of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads; in "The Fisherman's Wife," a parody of Wordsworth's "The Idiot Boy," Bayley appended the note: "The simplicity of that most simple of poets, Mr. Wordsworth himself, is scarcely more simple tha the language of this stanza. Absit invidia dicto." Wordsworth wrote in a letter to Thomas de Quincey, 1804, that the "wretched creature" (Bayley) had committed "Plagiarism, I believe unexampled in the history of modern Literature" - !! Bayley's "The Ivy Seat" parodies the Lucy poems; "The Forest Fay" contains some plagiarisms of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and Evining in the Vale of Festinog" parodies/plagiarizes "Tintern Abbey."The book is sold with all faults (including incendiary poetry!) A period bookmark, painted on vellum, is laid in. .

Keywords: