Chatterton and Ackroyd
[CHATTERTON, Thomas.] Poems, supposed to have been written at Bristol, by Thomas Rowley, and others, in the fifteenth century; the greatest part now first published from the most authentic copies, with an engraved specimen of one of the MSS. To which are added, a preface, an introductory account of the several pieces, and a glossary. London: Printed for T. Payne and Son, at the Mews-Gate. 1777.
8vo. Modern half calf over marbled boards, flat spine ruled in compartments with blue morocco lettering pieces, all edges speckled red; pp. xxvii, [1 (blank)], 307, [1 (blank)], with engraved plate after the “original manuscript”; a very handsome copy with a gentle patina and slight, even fading to the spine, internally very fresh with very light toning, endpapers slightly protruding from the text block.
First edition, with the second state of C4 (as usual), a cancel omitting the phrase “and were probably composed by him”.
Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) was an extraordinary literary prodigy, political writer, and forger who, despite his tragically short life, achieved great notoriety and exerted a lasting influence on the Romantic poets and artists. By the age of eleven he was already contributing to the Bristol Journal under the editorship of Felix Farley. He applied himself so assiduously to his studies that he soon began producing mature work which he claimed to be the recently discovered writings of an imaginary fifteenth-century monk and poet, Thomas Rowley. Chatterton soon attracted the attention of antiquaries such as William Barrett, to whom he supplied transcripts of Rowley’s works for scholarly investigation. In 1769 he sent examples of Rowley’s poetry to Horace Walpole, who initially offered to publish them if they proved authentic, but withdrew his support upon discovering that Chatterton was only sixteen, his suspicions thereby aroused.
Turning increasingly to political writing, his final months were marked by a prodigious outpouring of eclogues, lyrics, operas, and satires in both prose and verse, yet brought him little financial reward. Destitute, he apparently took his own life by arsenic poisoning in his garret in Brook Street at the age of just seventeen years and nine months (as famously depicted in Henry Wallis’s The Death of Chatterton). By the time this posthumous collection of the Rowley poems appeared, the literary world had largely reached a consensus that the works were forgeries. The editor, Thomas Tyrwhitt (1730-1786), “sensationally recanted his faith in [the poems]” shortly after publication (ODNB).
ESTC T42675; Freeman, Bibliotheca Fictiva (2nd ed.), 415.
[offered with:]
ACKROYD, Peter. Chatterton. London: Hamish Hamilton. 1987.
8vo. Original red cloth with gilt titles to spine in dust jacket (£10.95 to the front flap); pp. [6], 234; jacket with spine a little sunned and a few small stains to flaps, one small stain to front board, else a near fine copy, the text block tanned as always; Booker Prize 1987 bookmark loosely inserted.
First edition, first printing, signed by the author to the title page.
Set in modern-day London, Ackroyd’s novel follows the young poet Charles Wychwood as he investigates the suicide of Thomas Chatterton. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
SKU: 2124181