Dramatic Poems, Comprising the Following Tragedies: Gunilda, Usurper, Matilda, and Abdalla

Lewes: Printed by W. and A. Lee 1803. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Large 8vo, 223 x 128 mms., pp. [xvi]. 295 [296 blank], including list of subscribers, entirely uncut, cased in recent marbled wrappers. A very good copy, with the faint autograph "[?W H] Gage" on the top margin of the title-page. Captain Gage and Lady Gage appear in the list of subscribers. The work is dedicated to Lady Mary Pelham, who is probably the Lady Pelham who appears in the list of subscribers. A Captain Gage and a Lady Gage appear in the list of subscribers as well. No doubt this copy belonged to Sir William Hall Gage (1777-1864), who was Captain by 1796, and was promoted to Rear-Admiral in 1821. There is a record of Gage's uncle and namesake, William Hall Gage, 2nd Viscount Gage (1717/18-1791), being at the house of Frances Burney with John Delap on the same day, and having a "Great Dinner" at night, on June 20, 1779; the viscount was, like Delap, a resident of Lewes in Sussex, which is also the place of publication of the present item (Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke, eds., Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney: Volume III the Streatham Years [1994], p. 320).� John Delap (1724/5-1812) is described as poet and playwright in several online resources, but he was also an ordained minister in the Church of England. Gail Baylis in the Oxford DNB writes: "Delap's great love was writing tragedies and while he met with little dramatic success, he remained undaunted both in his attempts to promote his own efforts and to curry favour and fame. He also conferred and disputed endlessly with friends and colleagues over the merits of his own writings. David Garrick, Frances Burney, and Hester Thrale were recipients of Delap's almost obsessive preoccupation with his dramatic works. Burney described Delap's fondness for talking about his own work to the point of tedium and impoliteness: 'he returned to the same thing a million times, asked the same questions, enacted the same compliments, and worked at the same passages, till I almost fell asleep with the sound of the same words' (29 May 1779). Burney also claims that Delap's thirst for reputation was such that he preferred to 'make a general rout and reform' of his plays rather than miss the chance of production—an intention which he communicated to Garrick 'at portentous length' (Parsons, 186). Burney summed up Delap as 'a man of deep learning, but totally ignorant of life and manners'." He seems to have had a bemused and good-natured relationship with David Garrick, who produced his play Hecuba (1761) at Drury Lane on 11 December 1761. In addition to producing the work, Garrick also spoke the prologue and wrote the epilogue.