Author: JONES (WIlliam H.):
Title: Blanche de Bourbon, A Poem. Second edition.
Description: London: Hookham and Sons..., 1855. Small 8vo, 174 x 103 mms., pp. [v] vii - xi [xv names, xvi blank], 236, including half-title, original green cloth, stamped in blind, with gilt crest on front cover; no blank prelims, covers a bit soiled and worn; uncut with many leaves carelessly opened. Blanche of Bourbon (1339–1361) was Queen of Castile as the wife of King Peter. She was one of the daughters of Peter I, Duke of Bourbon and Isabella of Valois. At the age of 14, she married King Peter of Castile, who abandoned her three days after the marriage. Imprisoned first in Spain, and later in France, she was murdered on the orders of her husband. In his preface, Jones notes, "In the history of the Middle Ages, instances but to frequently occur of cruelty and oppression: it would, however, be difficult, even in the age, to find one where the victim was so blameless and her fate so dark as that of the unfortunate, Queen of Castile." The work is dedicated to [William] Hanbury Jones and Sir William Jones is mentioned in the last paragraph of the preface. Jones describes his verse meter as the "Romantic stanza" and cites Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel as his guideline. The lines rhyme abab, and the metre is dactylic. OCLC locates copies of this second edition in Cambridge, BL, Bodleian, NLS, Harvard The first edition was published in 1853, and OCLC locates copies in BL, NLS, South Carolina.

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