Author: PERCY (Thomas):
Title: Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and other Pieces of our earlier Poets, (Chiefly of the Lyric kind.) Together with some few of later Date. The Second Edition.
Description: London: Printed for J. Dodsley..., 1767. 3 volumes. 8vo, 177 x 108 mms., pp. [iii], viii - lxxvi [lxxvii - lxxx Contents and epigraph], 370 [371 - 372 Errata for all three volumes]; [ii], iii [iv epigraph], 340 [i. e., 400, last page misnumbered], [401 music, 402 blank]; [ii], iii [iv epigraph], [i] - xxxii, [1] - 398 [399 - 400 adverts], engraved frontispiece in volume 1, engraved plate of music at end of volume 2, engraved head- and tail-pieces, TA3 and T4 in volume 2 in cancelled state, contemporary calf, spines ornately gilt in compartments to a musical motif, red and olive morocco labels; rear cover volume 2 scored with small pieces of calf missing, top of spines volumes 2 and 3 slightly chipped, but generally a very good and attractive set. Dodsley printed 1500 copies of the first edition in 1765, and in six months he had sold 1100. In April 1765, Thomas Warton wrote to Percy to say, "I think you have opened a new field of Poetry, and supplied many new and curious Materials for the history and Illustration of antient English Literature.... At Oxford it is a favourite Work; and I doubt not, but it is equally popular in Town." Describing Percy as "our curious and correct editor," the reviewer in the Monthly Review for 1765 concluded that the word was a "very elegant, instructive, and entertaining compilation."

Keywords: poetry music literature


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