1812-1818 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Description

Early Edition, First Edition, Leather Binding

Cantos I and II are present in the 1812 fifth edition, published in the same year as the first edition. All of the five editions published in this year are now scarce.

'Canto the Third' is present in the 1816 first edition, second issue, first variant. With an exclamation point at the end of the first line of page 4, and with the fifth line of the first note on page 67 reading ‘Eagle’. Randolph, 'Studies for a Byron Bibliography', p. 59. Advertisement leaf to the rear.

'Canto the Fourth' is present in the 1818 first edition, second issue. Matching all issue points for Wise's first edition second issue (Wise, pp.61) including the new paragraph of seven lines to page 160, 'Esortazione' to the final line of page 155. As stated by Wise to page 64, 'The second and fifth issues have no advertisements sheets' (Wise, pp.64). Therefore, this copy does not have advertisements. 

Rebacked, with the original calf boards laid down.

With the armorial bookplate of Rev. F. P. Hodge to the front pastedown.

Lacking half titles.

A lovely example of Byron's long narrative poem, describing the travels and reflections of a weary young man searching for distraction in foreign lands. The autobiographical subjectivity of the work was widely influential, making a significant contribution to European Romanticism.