The first editions of Katherine Philips Poems from 1667 are becoming hard to find, it a book I enjoy finding and buying when I can, when I saw the copy listed today it posed a moral problem that I often face, weather to restore, rebind or leave alone (behind) and let someone else who is not so morally challenged to do what they like with it. So here is the manifestation of my solution.

755J. Philips, Katherine. (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 J. M. for H. Herringman, 1667             

  SOLD

Folio, 27 x 17 cm. First sanctioned edition, enlarged, preceded by a pirated and suppressed edition of 1664. Signatures: π2, A2 a-f2, B-Z2, Aa-Zz2, Aaa-Zzz2, Aaaa-Mmmm2( final leaf blank and lacking ) 

THE BINDING and THE BOX

This copy was found in bound a seventeenth century notary vellum document bound blank side out, the sewing had all but perished and the spine vellum was missing.  I had  the sewing restored and the boards stabilized and a custom  box made for sale storage and easy presentation.

This box, stabilization allows the library to display the methods of production of the binding, while allowing the student or instructor to read, collate and examine the book not only as a text but also a physical artifact of early book binding practices. below I have photographed some of the exposed features which can quickly demonstrate the function of end bands, raised sewing supports, and reused document vellum which is now readable and identifiable .

THE TEXT

Katherine Philips was “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 literarycircle 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 destroythe copies, which would account for its rarity. In the preface of the 1667 edition, reference ismade to the ‘false edition,’ and a long letter from the author in relation to it is quoted.

This is perhaps the most famous English collection of poems by a woman prior to 1700.

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 receivedinto 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 P2033; Hayward 116; Grolier 669; CBEL II, 480. Sweeney 3460