Sir Joshua Reynolds copy.- Donne (John) Poems, by J.D. With elegies on the authors death, the …

Sir Joshua Reynolds' copy.- Donne (John) Poems, by J.D. With elegies on the authors death, first edition, engraved portrait frontispiece (not called for and from Letters, 1651), large woodcut decorative initials, lacking initial and final blanks, a few pen trials to verso of title, with some show-through, closely trimmed at head, some water-staining, occasional spotting or staining, lightly browned, 19th century half calf over marbled boards, rebacked, preserving the original gilt backstrip in compartments, rubbed, [STC 7045; Keynes 78; Pforzheimer 296; Hayward 54; Grolier, Langland to Prior 286], small 4to, Printed by M[iles]. F[lesher]. for Iohn Marriot, and are to be sold at his shop in St Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street, 1633. ⁂ The Sir Joshua Reynolds-Philip Bliss copy of the first collected edition of Donne's poems. This the issue (presumably the first, but precedence not established) without the two inserted leaves 'The Printer to the Understanders' and 'Hexastichon Bibliopolæ' after A4, and with Nn1 in its uncorrected state, without a headline recto. Provenance: Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) English painter and a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, who was knighted by King George III in 1769 (ink signature to title); Philip Bliss (1787-1857) book collector, and variously sub-librarian at the Bodleian, Registrar of the University of Oxford, and Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford. He 'assembled a substantial library...strong in books with Oxford connections, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English poets, and works by 'royal and noble' authors' (Oxford DNB). The present book bought by him in 1812 (his discreet ownership mark 'P.' before the printed signature mark 'B', and with two-digit year of purchase '12' following it. Beneath this 'i:a:').