Poems

T H E

P O E M S

OF

MARK AKENSIDE, M.D.

L O N D O N,

PRINTED BY W. BOWYER AND J. NICHOLS:

AND SOLD BY J. DODSLEY, IN PALL MALL.

MDCCLXXII.

DESCRIPTION

(iv) + xi + 380pp + (iv)

4to quarto size. Book measures 290mm x 235mm approximately.

Nicely bound in full contemporary brown calf. Spine with five raised bands and maroon title label. Printed on high quality heavy gauge paper. Full page portrait frontispiece to title verso. All page edges cut.

The first full 4to collected edition. Complete with advertisement and contents.

CONDITION

Binding is holding firm. The front board is attached at lower hinge but not upper, and is a little shaky. Rear board is attached but cracking along most of hinge. Boards show surface scratches, a few knocks and small edge losses, some front board blemishes and bumping to corners. Internally the pages are remarkably clean and fresh throughout with only the odd minor spot. Neat handwritten annotation to page 343.

Overall, a nice larger format and heavy copy with beautifully clean pages, albeit with a slightly shaky binding.

Please refer to the photo images for a clear indication of both condition and content.

INTERESTING

Mark Akenside (1721 to 1770) was an English poet and physician. Akenside was born at Newcastle upon Tyne, the son of a butcher. All his relations were Dissenters, and, after attending the Royal Free Grammar School of Newcastle, and a dissenting academy in the town, he was sent in 1739 to the University of Edinburgh to study theology with a view to becoming a minister, his expenses being paid from a special fund set aside by the dissenting community for the education of their pastors. After one winter as a theology student, Akenside changed to medicine as his field of study. He repaid the money that had been advanced for his theological studies, and became a deist.

During a visit to Morpeth in 1738, Akenside had the idea for his didactic poem, The Pleasures of the Imagination, which was well received and later described as "of great beauty in its richness of description and language", and was also subsequently translated into more than one foreign language.

Akenside's verse was better when it was subjected to more severe metrical rules. His odes are rarely lyrical in the strict sense, but they are dignified and often musical. By 1911 his works were little read. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".