Author: STEVENS (John L.):
Title: Fancy's Wreath; Poems. Second Edition.
Description: Plymouth: Printed for the Author, and Published by H. C. Creagh, and W. Curtis..., 1821 8vo (in 4s), 179 x 111 mms., pp. [xiv], 150 [151 errata,152 blank], including four pages of subscribers, contemporary, contemporary straight grain green morocco, marbled boards, spine richly gilt; binding a bit rubbed, but a good copy with the elaborate autograph on the top margin of the title-page of "W. M. D. Andrew." There is a skip in the pagination at page 110 to page 113, and a photocopy of pages 111 and 112 [P4] from another edition. The leaf looks to me to have been deliberately excised, but the pages are found in another copy. One of the subscribers, "John Dickins [sic]" is perhaps the John Dickens 1785–1851), an assistant clerk in the navy pay office, stationed since 1808 in Portsmouth, and father of the novelist. Given that the book was printed in Plymouth, which is about 170 miles from Portsmouth, it seems unlikely that this subscriber is the same person. In any case John Dickens was prisoner in Marshalsea Debtors' Prison at the time. The first edition of 1820 was composed of only 120 pages, and the only copy that OCLC lists is found in NLS. For this second edition, OCLC locates only the copy in Plymouth Library.

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