Author: SANDERSON (John), of Chalk:
Title: Original Poems, on Various Subjects.
Description: Carlisle: Printed by Francis and James Jollie, 1822. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 12mo, 191 x 105 mms., pp. [8] 9 - 240, including half-title and eight pages of subscribers, uncut, original boards, neatly respined, with paper label. A very good copy The Author is not the American John Sanderson (1818 - 1864) but I have found out very little about him. He is (appropriately) unassuming about his poetical talent, and he seems to have turned to verse after he was 51: "Or [sic, for Ere?] I begun, near three-score years were fled,/ Fully fifty-one I've labour'd for my bread...." Some of his poems are topical - Queen Caroline, slavery - while others are traditional. Some are indeed witty, some are self-reflective, but he is unlikely to join the immortals. OCLC locates copies in BL; NYPL, UCLA, Stanford, Toronto. There are about 400 names in the subscribers' pages at the end of the, so I wonder what happened to most of the books. Chalk is not small village in Kent , but t a modern day (1822) version of Shawk because there is a Shawk Quarry (with a Roman inscription) near Dalston near Carlisle. Sanderson was a quarry owner and it may be his quarry. Chalk could also be a shortening of Chalkfoot a hamlet in the area. A lot of the poems are very local if you read through them. He had very impressive local support though curiously there seem to be no gentlemen or clergy. (With thanks to TM for this information.)

Keywords: poetry provincial imprint


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