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TAYLOR, John, the Water-Poet.
All the Workes ...
Beeing Sixty and three in Number. Collected into one Volume by the Author: With sundry new Additions, corrected, revised, and newly Imprinted, 1630.
Publisher: by J[ohn]. B[eale]. [and others] for James Boler, 1630
Stock code: 31386
Price: £6,000 Currency Conversion
First edition of the collected works of the self-styled Water-Poet. "Not all the pieces here included have survived in early separate form. Neither are all of Taylor's works issued prior to the date of this collection contained in it. The selection is, nevertheless, a comprehensive one" (Pforzheimer). The choice to publish the collection was Taylor's: "an extraordinary decision for a popular rhymer who was placing himself in the company of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Daniel (a friend). It was an act of defiance and self-assertion, however, rather than triumph or celebration. Taylor had no grand patrons, and pointedly dedicated his volume to 'the world', with dispirited comments on his failure to win recognition ... Having successfully constructed a comic persona as the rhyming waterman, it was an impossible challenge to be accepted as a serious poet. His achievement was none the less impressive" (ODNB). In his verse Errata, Taylor claims that the book took four different printers to produce, although internal evidence suggests only three. The printing was probably done piecemeal because Boler did not acquire the copyright to most pieces, merely permission to include them in this collection.
Folio in sixes (298 × 197 mm). Bound without initial blank in mid 19th-century dark blue morocco by Bedford, spine richly gilt in compartments, raised bands, sides panelled in gilt with gilt arms in centre, gilt inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Engraved title by Thomas Cockson, surrounded by nautical instruments, vignette at top showing Taylor entertaining a passenger, another below with Taylor's portrait; numerous woodcuts in the third part of the text. The Britwell Library copy; subsequently in the library of Walter T. Shirley II, with his bookplate. A few leaves apparently supplied from another copy, a very few minor paper repairs, but an excellent copy, exceptionally large, retaining many uncut edges, larger all round than the Pforzheimer copy, itself described as very large.
