Author: PENROSE (Thomas):
Title: Poems by the Rev. Thomas Penrose late rector of Beckington and Standerwick, Somersetshire.
Description: London: Printed for J. Walter..., 1781. FIRST EDITION. 8vo. pp. viii, 120, contemporary fair polished calf, gilt spine, red leather label; upper and lower front joint very slightly cracked, but a very good and handsome copy, with the Heytesbury House bookplate on the front paste-down end-paper. Penrose (1741 - 1779) began his career as a naval adventurer in South America, but a wound forced him to retire to Oxford; he later took holy orders and became curate to his father at Newbury. The brief biographical introduction is by James Pettit Andrews, who married Penrose's sister. The poems include some references to his American experiences, for example, one to the lady who later became his wife, "To Miss Slocock. Written on board the Ambuscade, Jan. 6th 1763, a short time before the attack of Nova Colonia do Sacramento, in the river of Plate" and "Elegy on leaving the River of Plate...." Penrose published several collections of poems and his works were included in a number of anthologies. In addition to his poetry, he wrote a number of books on religious and patriotic subjects and a study of Petrarch and Dante with an account of Italian and Latin literature in the fourteenth century. As Penrose was a West Country poet, being a longtime resident of Somerset, it is noteworthy to find distinguished West Country provenance: this copy has the Heytesbury House bookplate, that of Lord Heytesbury, Baron Heytesbury of Heytesbury. The village of Heytesbury in the southwest of Wiltshire is only a few miles east of the border shared by Somerset and Wilts. ESTC T101656. This is one of only four volumes attributed to Thomas Penrose in the online Jackson Bibliography of Romantic Poetry.

Keywords: poetry naval literature


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