THE POETICAL WORKS OF LORD BYRON. Collected and Arranged, With Notes and Illustrations [with,] Moore, Thomas, editor. THE LIFE, LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON. Collected and Arranged with Notes by Sir Walter Scott, Lord Jeffery, [et al].

Together 2 volumes. The Complete and Copyright Edition of the ‘Works’, and the New and Complete Edition of the ‘Life’. The ‘Works’ with fine steel engraved portrait of Byron at age 19 and an engraved pictorial half-title with vignette of Newstead Abby, both engraved by Finden, and four pages of autograph facsimiles. The ‘Life’ with Finden engraved portrait, vignette half-title featuring a differing view of Newstead Abby and seven engraved plates being portraits and views. Royal 8vo, each volume very finely and uniformly bound in antique full forest-green calf, the covers with double gilt fillet rules at the borders, inner stippled border in blind and with floral corner-pieces, the spines separated into six compartments by gilt laced raised bands, three compartments fully gilt decorated in an overlapping scallop motif additionally gilt rolled and lined, two compartments with central gilt tools of a flower-and-thistle design bordered by a gilt scalloped frame, ruled and additionally tooled in gilt and with a small gilt star in each corner, the remaining compartment with red morocco label gilt ruled and lettered, additional gilt lettering at the tails, board edges gilt decorated, marbled end-papers and page edges. viii, [4], 827, [1]; xix, [1], 735 pp. A very handsome set, fine with only a bit of very minor spotting to the prelims, much less then typically found, the bindings showing only minor age, quite attractive.

Edizione: bryon’s complete poetical works handsomely presented in an elegant period binding, beautifully preserved inside and out. this is a very fine production of byron’s great romantic poetry printed in double column with in fine ruled margins. john murray had a particular interest in byron and is largely responsible for publishing and promoting the author, as this fine one volume collection attests. if not for murray’s efforts, it may have taken byron works years, if ever, to reach the same height of popularity and fame.<br> moore’s memoir of his friend byron is one of the most famous literary biographies in english literature. "it was exactly the biography which that age required: by no means complete or entirely authentic, nor claiming to be so, but presenting byron in the light in which contemporaries desired to regard him and in every respect a model of tact and propriety. the work will rank as a classic, even though its interest be less due to the efforts of moore"s own pen than to the charm of the letters which he was the first to give to the world" (richard garnett in d.n.b.)