I am fairly sure that the Poems of Katherine Philips was the first 17th century book by an English Woman , I bought back some 30 years ago, and since then I have always been taken by her as a Person, Author, Poetess and Cultural force. I have read most all of her published work, Poems and Letters, and continue to each time anew find more to ponder. I hope that those of you who are not familiar with explore her works and life.

Today I offer a second (non false) edition. It is a nice copy of perhaps the most famous English collection of poems by a woman prior to 1700.

923J Katherine Philips (1631-1664)

Poems By the most deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda. To which is added Monsieur Corneilles Pompey & Horace, Tragedies. With several other Translations out of French.

London: Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman at the Sign of the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1669 Price $5,500

Folio 27 x 17 cm. Signatures: [ ]2, A4, a-Z4, Aa-Tt4, Uu1 0f 2[ lacking final blank.] Third edition overall, Second Authorized edition. The portrait of Katherine Philips is bound opposite the title. This copy is bound in contemporary full calf respectfully rebacked. There ia a crossed out signature of Edward Mavesson April 28 1713 London, on the rear paste down there are slightly earlier looking ownership notes of Eduund Yeme and Dorothy Yeme (more on these later)

“The daughter of a London merchant, Katherine Fowler [her maiden name] was probably the first English woman poet to have her work published. She married a gentleman of substance from Cardigan, James Philips, and seems to have moved effortlessly into the literary circle adorned by Vaughan, Cowley, and Jeremy Taylor. She was best known by her pseudonym ‘Orinda’ and the name appears on the collection of her Letters, which give a useful picture of the early seventeenth-century literary world. Her translation of Corneille’s ‘Pompee’ was performed in Dublin in 1663 and a collection of her verses was published posthumously in 1664.” (Stapleton)

Mrs. Philips’ poems were circulated in manuscript, and secured for her a considerable reputation. The surreptitious quarto edition produced in 1664 caused her much annoyance, and Marriott, the publisher, was obliged to withdraw it from sale, and publicly to express his regret for having issued it. Some trouble was taken, it would appear, to destroy the copies, which would account for its rarity. In the preface of the 1667 edition, reference is made to the ‘false edition,’ and a long letter from the author in relation to it is quoted.

P.W. Souers, in his critical biography of Katherine Philips, asserts for her the right to be historically the first English poetess—“In her, for the first time in the history of English letters, a woman was received into the select company of poets.” Jeremy Taylor dedicated to her his “Discourse on the Nature, Offices, and Measures of Friendship;” Abraham Cowley, Henry Vaughan the Silurist, Thomas Flatman, the Earl of Roscommon, and the Earl of Cork and Orrery all celebrated her talent, and Dryden could pay no higher compliment to Anne Killigrew than to compare her to Orinda. Keats, in a letter to Reynolds in 1817, quotes her verses with approval.

Wing P-2034; ESTC (RLIN),; R020915