Autograph poetry in the English language. 2 volumes. Edited with an introduction, commentary and transcripts.

Ein gutes und sauberes Exemplar. - Autograph Poetry in the English Language is a unique work. Its two volumes cover ihe period from the fourteenth century' to Dylan. Thomas in the twentieth, and represent 146 poets on ] 97 chronologically-arranged plates reproducing complete pages of manuscript. The volumes contain much exciting material that has never been published before. The only known poem in Sir Philip Sidney's hand has escaped the notice of his editors and is-reproduced here for the first time. Mr. Croft has identified : a notebook containing an entirely new corpus of Elizabethan poetry in the hand of Sir Philip Sidney's brother Robert, a man eminent in his day as a soldier and statesman but not previously known as a poet. One sonnet, from Robert Sidney's notebook is reproduced here, the first known publication of any of his poetry. The volume?: also include hitherto un-known poems by Herrick, Gay, and Crabbe, a charming new Songe by the Cavalier general William Cavendish, and the original draft of Byron's most famous lyric 'She walks in Beauty', showing the poem in che process of composition and breaking off poignantly with an unfinished Stanza which Byron was to suppress and which has riot been published before.