Crashaw, Richard (1612-1649)

Steps To The Temple, The Delights Of The Muses, And Carmen Deo Nostro. By Ric. Crashaw, sometimes Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and late Fellow of St Peters Colledge in Cambridge.

     Bound With

Richardi Crashawi Poemata et epigrammata, quæ scripsit Latina & Græca, dum Aulæ Pemb. alumnus fuit, et Collegii Petrensis socius.

[London]: In the Savoy, Printed by T.N. for Henry Herringman at the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1670

   [ bound with ]

Cantabrigiae: Ex officina Joan Hayes, celeberrimæ academiæ typographi: 1670.   Price: $7,500

Octavo 16.5 x 10.5 cm. Signatures A-O8: A-F8 . This is the third edition (not the second, as the title states) of his “Steps to the Temple” (first 1646).  The third edition of “The Delights of the Muses” (first edition 1648)  The  second edition of the posthumous “Carmen Deo Nostro…Sacred Poems” (first edition 1652). BOUND With  The First edition of the “ Poemata et Epigrammata”  (in this volume there are ten Latin poems  reprinted from the 1646 & 1648 editions of the “Steps to the Temple”    

  This copy is beautifully complete, including the engraved frontispiece, and the final blank, O8. This is a lovely copy in very good contemporary condition. The original dark brown sheepskin has been expertly rebacked. The leaves are strikingly clean and white throughout. With the bookplate of Graham Pollard.     `

Steps to the Temple is generally recognized as one of the most important collections of metaphysical verse produced in the Restoration period. Crashaw’s “Hymm to St. Teresa” provided the inspiration for Coleridge’s “Christabel.” Crashaw shows his admiration for Herbert, throughout his poems, there are also many echoes of Donne.

“Compared with one another, Crashaw represents more of Donne’s ecstasy, and Herbert more of his reason.” (The Donne Tradition, George Williamson)

This volume contains Crashaw’s best known poems: “The Weeper,” “The Divine Epigrams,” “In memory of the Vertuous and Learned Lady Madre de Teresa,” and the much anthologized “Wishes To His (Supposed) Mistresse.”

Wither to Prior #234; Wing C-6838.   

and 

Wither to Prior #236; Wing C6834;  Allison, A.F. Four metaphysical poets,; Crashaw [2]; Martin, L.C., Poems … of Crashaw,;