1866 – The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith
 
Aldine Edition • Half-leather and marbled boards • Marbled edges & endpapers • 1866
 
Book overview
 
Attractive Aldine Edition of The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, with a memoir by the Reverend J. Mitford. Handsome half-leather binding with marbled paper boards, marbled all-edge pages, and marbled pastedowns and endpapers. Small vignette on the title page and decorative headpieces. A neat, tightly bound copy, bright inside and in very good condition for its age.
 
Publication & dating
 
Publisher: Bell & Daldy, York Street, Covent Garden, London
Printer: Chiswick Press, printed by Whittingham & Wilkins, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane
Date: 1866 (advertisement at front dated June 1866)
Series: Aldine Edition of the British Poets
 
Binding & exterior condition
 
Red half-leather spine and corners, marbled paper boards.
Panelled spine with gilt decoration and lettering.
All-edge marbling, marbled pastedowns and endpapers.
Binding intact and robust, light shelf wear at corners and edges, small rubbing to board paper. An attractive, well-preserved binding for a book of nearly 160 years.
 
Interior condition
 
Pages bright and generally clean, lightly tanned consistent with age.
Occasional very light crease, mostly uncreased pages.
Extremely small edge rips to pages lxxxiii–lxxxvi, not affecting text.
Small patches of rubbing to front pastedown and front free endpaper.
No pen or pencil inscriptions.
Tightly bound, no loose gatherings.
All pages present: 192 pages of poems, plus the memoir and preliminaries as present in this edition.
 
Measurements & weight
 
Approx. 16.7 × 11.0 × 2.0 cm
Approx. 263 g
 
About the author
 
Irish writer and poet, celebrated for lyrical verse, essays, and the novel The Vicar of Wakefield.