William James Linton:

62) Golden Apples of Hesperus (Poems not in the Collections),

New Haven 1882

Limited edition of 225 copies, hand signed.

Linton had dedicated this anthology of British poems from the Elizabethan Age to the present to his friend, the American critic and poet Richard Henry Stoddard. Stoddard had supported him in his research work and had inspired him with his edition of Melodies and Madrigals. In the following year they would jointly publish their five-volume anthology of English Verse. The editions feature Linton’s favourite periods, the early seventeenth and early nineteenth century. “Poems not in the collections: meaning such general selections as are in vogue and accessible to ordinary readers of poetry (...) Most of the poems here printed I have not been able to find in any popular anthology.” The historical part has lyrics by John Donne, Philip Sidney and Robert Herrick, and the 19th century section compiles, among others, his whole circle of literary friends and acquaintances: Walter Savage Landor, Charles Wells, Ebenezer Elliott, Harriet Martineau, Thomas Wade, Richard Hengist Horne, Sarah Flower Adams, William Bell Scott, Ebenezer Jones and Gabriel Dante Rossetti. For illustration he mostly fell back on his Claribel emblems, but added a few new ones. “Of the wood-cuts I may confess that I have but cared to adorn my pages with something less monotonous and less impertinent than printer’s furniture, while yet avoiding the imposition of what it has been the custom to call illustrations.”