Showing posts with label Diamond Cabinet Editions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diamond Cabinet Editions. Show all posts

Sunday

Acquisitions (144): Diamond Cabinet Editions


Jones & Co.: Diamond British Poets & Classics (1823-1831)

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Jones & Co. / Late Lackingtons: The Temple of the Muses (Finsbury Square)

Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets (1836)
[May, 2026]:


Jones's Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets. 4 vols (c.1836)
[All photos of this set by Bronwyn Lloyd]

Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets. 4 vols. London: Jones & Co., 1836.
  1. Comprising in One Volume The Works of Milton, Cowper, Goldsmith, Thomson, Falconer, Akenside, Collins, Gray.
  2. Comprising The Works of Kirke White, Burns, Beattie, Shenstone, Gay’s Fables, Butler’s Hudibras & Select Works of Lord Byron.
  3. Comprising Moore [sic.], Pope, Watts, Hayley, Mason, Prior, Grahame & Logan.
  4. Comprising Dryden, Littleton [sic.], Hammond, Richardson, Charlotte Smith, Canning, Gifford, Bloomfield’s Farmer’s Boy &c.


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Diamond British Poets - Diamond Classics: Miniature Travelling Library (London: Jones & Co., 1824-1835)

Travelling Editions


So it seems that, rather than filling trunks and packing cases with miscellaneous volumes of verse and prose, the well-organised traveller in the 1820s and 30s could invest instead in a compact library of books guaranteed to satisfy all tastes. The handsome set pictured directly above included the following 50 titles, arranged below according to their date of publication in this form:
  1. 1824 – Samuel Butler: Hudibras, a Poem
  2. 1825 – John Dryden: The Poetical Works, Vol I.
  3. 1825 – John Dryden: The Poetical Works, Vol II.
  4. 1825 – James Grahame: The Sabbath &c.
  5. 1825 – Matthew Prior: The Poetical Works, Vol. I.
  6. 1825 – Matthew Prior: The Poetical Works, Vol. II.
  7. 1825 – John Dryden: The Works of Virgil [2 vols in one]
  8. 1826 – Lord Lyttleton: The Poetical Works
  9. 1826 – William Somervile: The Chase
  10. 1826 – Edward Young: The Complaint, or Night Thoughts
  11. 1827 – Robert Bloomfield: The Farmer’s Boy
  12. 1827 – David Lester Richardson: Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems
  13. 1827 – Charlotte Smith: Elegiac Sonnets
  14. 1828 – Gifford’s Baviad & Mæviad &c.
  15. 1828 – Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto
  16. 1830 - William Hayley: The Triumphs of Temper
  17. 1830 – Alexander Pope: The Poetical Works, Vol. I.
  18. 1830 – Alexander Pope: The Poetical Works, Vol. II.
  19. 1830 – Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels [2 vols in one]
  20. 1830 – Isaac Watts: Horæ Lyricæ: Poems Chiefly of the Lyric Kind
  21. 1831 – Demosthenes: The Orations, Vol. I.
  22. 1831 – The Orations of Demosthenes, Vol. II.
  23. 1831 – Mark Akenside: The Poetical Works
  24. 1831 – William Collins: The Poetical Works
  25. 1831 – John Gay: Fables and Other Poems
  26. 1831 – William Mason: The English Garden
  27. 1832 – Francis Bacon: Essays: Moral, Economical and Political
  28. 1832 – George Canning: The Poetical Works
  29. 1832 – William Cowper: Poems, Vol. I.
  30. 1832 – William Cowper: Poems, Vol. II.
  31. 1832 – Oliver Goldsmith: The Poetical Works
  32. 1832 – Thomas Gray: The Poetical Works
  33. 1832 – John Langhorne: Theodosius and Constantia
  34. 1832 – Hannah More: Sacred Dramas
  35. 1832 – Saint-Pierre: Paul and Virginia & The Indian Cottage
  36. 1833 – Robert Burns: Poetical Works, Vol I.
  37. 1833 – Robert Burns: Poetical Works, Vol II.
  38. 1833 – George Crabbe: The Village &c.
  39. 1833 – W. Dodd: The Beauties of Shakespeare
  40. 1833 – Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield
  41. 1833 – William Shenstone: The Poetical Works
  42. 1833 – Laurence Sterne: A Sentimental Journey
  43. 1834 – [Goethe]: The Sorrows of Werter [Werther]
  44. 1834 – John Milton: Paradise Lost, Regained &c.
  45. 1834 – The Poetical Remains of Henry Kirke White
  46. 1835 – James Beattie: The Minstrel &c.
  47. 1835 – Madame Cottin: Elizabeth; or the Exiles of Siberia &c.
  48. 1835 – William Falconer: The Shipwreck
  49. 1835 – Samuel Johnson: Rasselas: A Tale
  50. 1835 – James Thomson: The Seasons

The 15 titles marked in bold above are those not included in my own compact 4-volume set of "Select British Poets", a compilation of previously published texts which I've tentatively dated to 1836 - despite the "1827" date on the title-page - because of the following inscription, repeated on the flyleaf of each volume:




Katherine Anne Emily Cecilia
Somerset
From her affectionate Brother Richard
Janu[uar]y 1st, 1837

Thanks, Richard - a generous gift indeed! They clearly were read, as some (few) annotations and underlinings can be spotted here and there. There's some highlighting too, which presumably dates from a later era.

With only three exceptions - Young's Night Thoughts, Crabbe's The Village and Dodd's The Beauties of Shakespeare - the excluded works were all in prose, which explains their omission from this set of purely poetry volumes. I suspect that the absence of Young's and Crabbe's popular long poems may have been due to copyright issues, but that's really just a guess.
Jones & Co.: Diamond British Poets. Diamond Classics (1823-1831)

Jones published a Diamond Poets series and a Diamond Classics series. Most known sets combine the two series and are commonly called the "Jones Diamond Classics" ... Each volume contains an engraved frontispiece of the author and an engraved title page. There were reportedly 53 volumes issued altogether between 1823 and 1831, so some complete sets were assembled over time, but ... it is clear that the case was only ever intended to hold 50 volumes. Authors include Burns, Dryden, Swift, Milton, Cowper, Johnson, Pope, and Byron, among others:
As far as size goes, my four volumes are a little larger than the sextodecimo one pictured above, but are still in pocket format, with extremely tiny print. Each of my volumes is roughly 180 mmm high x 112 mm wide, which puts them more in the duodecimo range.




The (once) sturdy cardboard box they're housed in is roughly 192 mm high x 122 mm wide. It's missing the protective lid which I suspect must once have been present to guard them from the stresses and strains of travel.


Jones's Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets. 4 vols (c.1836)


It's thought that they were originally intended to rival William Pickering's Diamond Travelling Library Series, a set of "tiny (4.5 x 2.75 ins) editions of Horace, Milton and Whatnot, printed in diamond type ..."
In 1821 [Pickering] began issuing the popular series of “Diamond Classics,” miniature books set in tiny 4.5 point type and offered in a cloth or leather binding at an affordable price of six shillings. The series, which continued through 1831, was so successful that collectors sometimes had their volumes rebound by society bookbinders such as Charles-François Capé ... This collection includes the following Diamond Classics: Catullus (1824), Cicero’s De Officiis and other works (1821), Dante (2 vols., 1822), Homer’s Iliad (1831), Homer’s Odyssey (1831), Horace (1826), Petrarch (1822), Tasso (vol. 2 only, 1822), Terence (1822), and Virgil (1821).
11 volumes, 24mo (84 x 46mm). Uniformly bound in maroon morocco gilt:

William Pickering: Diamond Classics (1821-31)



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Jones & Co.: The Temple of the Muses (Finsbury Square)


Their publisher, too, is of considerable interest. The British Museum listings for Jones & Co. date the firm as being active between 1822 and 1850, which certainly fits in nicely with the dates of that 50-volume travelling library, as well as my four-volume compact set of poets. The addresses given for them are as follows:
3 Warwick Square, London
3 Acton Place, Kingsland Road (1828)
32 Finsbury Place, Moorfields
Temple of the Muses, Finsbury Square (in 1830, 1831, 1832 and 1836)
And this is the appended biography:
Booksellers and print publishers. Published 'The National Gallery of Pictures by the Great Masters' in the 1830s ... Took on the famed 'Temple of the Muses' in Finsbury Square which had been run by Lackington & Co, as can be seen in a view of the building lettered as 'Jones and Compy. / Late Lackingtons'.
A recent blogpost on Jane Austen's London describes the building's appeal as follows:
Billed as the “Cheapest Bookseller in the World,” the Temple of Muses enjoyed a reputation as being one of the biggest booksellers of the day. Run by Lackington Allen & Company at No. 32, Finsbury Place South, in Finsbury square from 1778-1798, the book store would publish catalogs ranging from twelve thousand to over thirty thousand titles ...
The shop frontage was one hundred and forty feet long, making it one of the tourist sites to see in London. The middle of the shop posted an enormous circular counter, large enough that it was said that a mail coach and four (or six, depending upon the account) could be driven around it. A wide staircase led to ‘lounging rooms’ and galleries of bookshelves, which were rather unusual in the day. Usually booksellers kept their wares solely behind the counter where only the clerks had access. As patrons climbed to higher floors, the books become “shabbier” ... but cheaper.
The books published here included the first, anonymous edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.


Anon. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
(London, Finsbury Square: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818)



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Carl Spitzweg. English Tourists in the Campagna (c.1835)


I suppose what interests me most about these cabinet editions is the insights they give into what the well-dressed Engländer abroad was reading in 1820s and 1830s. Most of the poetry here dates from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The sole concession to the Romantics is the inclusion of a few early poems from Byron's Hours of Idleness & English Bards and Scots Reviewers. There's no Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, or Wordsworth - let alone William Blake!

The prose classics included seem even more staggering as a traveller's sole vade mecum: The only classical text is The Orations of Demosthenes - though that may be because that market had already been scooped by William Pickering (as well as his Greek and Latin library, he was also responsible for the 50-odd volume Aldine Poets series). I suppose that Demosthenes is here as a useful source of pithy maxims, like Francis Bacon's Essays: Moral, Economical and Political and the Rev. William Dodd's The Beauties of Shakespeare. The novels mostly date from the 18th century. They include Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, Dr. Johnson's Rasselas, Sterne's A Sentimental Journey, Swift's Gulliver’s Travels, and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto.

But there are also a few works in translation: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's sentimental romance Paul et Virginie and Goethe's rather racier Die Leiden des jungen Werthers [The Sorrows of Werter (sic.)]. I hadn't heard previously of Madame Cottin's Elisabeth ou les Exilés de Sibérie [Elizabeth; or the Exiles of Siberia], but no less a source than Nuttall's Encyclopaedia assures us that it's a "wildly romantic but irreproachably moral tale."

Nor had I heard of John Langhorne's Theodosius and Constantia - full title "The Correspondence between Theodosius and Constantia from their first acquaintance to the departure of Theodosius, now first published from the original manuscripts, by the Editor of 'The Letters that passed between Theodosius and Constantia after she had taken the Veil'" (1763-64). This rather ponderous fiction apparently delighted our ancestors more than it does us. Again: no Jane Austen, no Fielding, no Smollett - and no Scott (though admittedly the author of the Waverley novels was still 'the great unknown' until his identity was revealed in 1827).

All of which brings us to the actual contents of my own four volumes of assorted poets:


NB: each surname is reproduced from the book-spine,
the title and date of each work from its title-page inside the volume;
surnames in [square brackets] are not on the spine, but their work is inside;
titles in bold are not included in the 50-volume set above.

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    Jones's Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets (vol. I)

    Volume I

  1. Milton
    • The Poetical Works of John Milton: Complete in One Volume (1835)
  2. Cowper
    • Poems by William Cowper, Esq. (1832)
  3. Goldsmith
    • The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B. (1832)
  4. Thomson
    • James Thomson: The Seasons; A Poem (1831)
  5. Falconer
    • William Falconer: The Shipwreck; A Poem (1831)
  6. Akenside
    • The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside, M.D. (1831)
  7. Collins
    • The Poetical Works of William Collins (1831)
  8. [Somervile]
    • William Somervile: The Chase, and Other Poems (1831)
  9. Gray
    • The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray (1832)

    10. Frontispiece (vol. I)



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    Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets (vol. II)

    Jones's Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets (vol. II)

    Volume II

  10. Kirke White
    • The Poetical remains of Henry Kirke White of Nottingham, Late of St. John's College, Cambridge (1831)
  11. Burns
    • The Poetical Works of Robert Burns; as Collected and Published by Dr. Currie; with Additional Poems (1829)
  12. Beattie
    • James Beattie: The Minstrel; and Other Poems (1828)
  13. Shenstone
    • The Poetical Works of William Shenstone (1831)
  14. Gay’s Fables
    • John Gay: Fables and other Poems (1832)
  15. Butler’s Hudibras
    • Samuel Butler: Hudibras, A Poem (1829)
  16. Select Works of Lord Byron
    • Poems by the Right Honourable Lord Byron; with his Memoirs [Hours of Idleness; English Bards and Scotch Reviews, A Satire; Poems on Domestic Circumstances, &c.] (1829)

    17. Frontispiece (vol. II)



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    Jones's Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets (vol. III)

    Volume III

  17. Moore
    • Hannah More: Sacred Dramas; The Search after Happiness; and Other Poems (1829)
  18. Pope
    • The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. (1829)
  19. Watts
    • Isaac Watts, D.D.: Horæ Lyricæ: Poems Chiefly of the Lyric Kind: in Three Books (1829)
  20. Hayley
    • William Hayley, Esq.: The Triumphs of Temper; A Poem in Six Cantos (1829)
  21. Mason
    • William Mason, M.A.: The English Garden: A Poem in Four Books (1829)
  22. Prior
    • The Poetical Works of Matthew Prior (1829)
  23. Grahame
    • James Grahame: The Sabbath, and Other Poems (1829)
  24. Logan
    • Poems; and Runnamede, A Tragedy, by The Rev. John Logan, F.R.S.E. (1829)

    25. Frontispiece (vol. III)



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    Jones's Diamond Cabinet Editions of Select British Poets (vol. IV)

    Volume IV

  25. Dryden
    • The Poetical Works of John Dryden (1830)
  26. Littleton
    • The Poetical Works of Lord Lyttleton (1830)
  27. Hammond
    • The Poetical Works of James Hammond (1830)
  28. Richardson
    • David Lester Richardson, Esq.: Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems Partly Written in India (1827)
  29. Charlotte Smith
    • Charlotte Smith: Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems (1829)
  30. Canning
    • The Poetical Works of the Right Hon. George Canning (1830)
  31. Gifford
    • Gifford’s Baviad & Mæviad: Pasquin vs. Faulder: Epistle to Peter Pindar: with the Author's Memoir of His Own Life (1829)
  32. Bloomfield’s Farmer’s Boy
    • Robert Bloomfield: The Farmer’s Boy (n.d.)

    33. Frontispiece (vol. IV)

So how does that work? There are 32 separate authors or works included here. If we add to them the fifteen volumes excluded from the 50-volume set above, that comes to 47. But then of course there are the two authors who aren't in the larger set - Byron and Hammond [who he? - ed.]. If we subtract them, we're left with 45. But then Burns, Cowper, Dryden, Pope and Prior each required two volumes for their respective Collected Poems. 45 + 5 = 50.

All in all, good value for money, I'd say!

I don't feel that I can quite leave it at that, though. Who are these poets? Why are so many of their names unfamiliar to us? What does that tell us about the taste of the common reader in this period between the Romantic poets and the great Victorians?

I've therefore tried to provide some information about each of these authors - familiar or unfamiliar - in the section below.


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Diamond Cabinet Editions
of Select British Poets: London: Jones & Co.
(1827-1835)

[16 of these 32 included in Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1779-81). I've marked each of them with an asterisk]
  1. * Mark Akenside: The Poetical Works (1831)
  2. Francis Bacon: Essays: Moral, Economical and Political (1832)
  3. James Beattie: The Minstrel; and Other Poems (1821)
  4. Robert Bloomfield: The Farmer’s Boy (1835)
  5. Robert Burns: The Poetical Works (1829)
  6. * Samuel Butler: Hudibras, A Poem (1829)
  7. Lord Byron: Poems; with his Memoirs (1829)
  8. George Canning: The Poetical Works (1830)
  9. * William Collins: The Poetical Works (1831)
  10. Madame Cottin: Elizabeth; or the Exiles of Siberia (1835)
  11. William Cowper: Poems (1832)
  12. George Crabbe: The Village (1833)
  13. Demosthenes: Orations (1831)
  14. W. Dodd: The Beauties of Shakespeare (1833)
  15. * John Dryden: The Poetical Works (1830)
  16. William Falconer: The Shipwreck; A Poem (1831)
  17. * John Gay: Fables and Other Poems (1832)
  18. William Gifford: Baviad & Mæviad: Pasquin vs. Faulder: Epistle to Peter Pindar (1829)
  19. Goethe: The Sorrows of Werter (1834)
  20. Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield (1833)
  21. Oliver Goldsmith: The Poetical Works (1832)
  22. James Grahame: The Sabbath, and Other Poems (1829)
  23. * Thomas Gray: The Poetical Works (1832)
  24. James Hammond: The Poetical Works (1830)
  25. William Hayley: The Triumphs of Temper; A Poem in Six Cantos (1829)
  26. Samuel Johnson: Rasselas: A Tale (1835)
  27. Henry Kirke White: The Poetical Remains (1831)
  28. John Langhorne: Theodosius and Constantia (1832)
  29. * Lord Lyttleton: The Poetical Works (1830)
  30. The Rev. John Logan: Poems; and Runnamede, A Tragedy (1829)
  31. William Mason: The English Garden: A Poem in Four Books (1829)
  32. * John Milton: The Poetical Works (1835)
  33. Hannah More: Sacred Dramas; The Search after Happiness; and Other Poems (1829)
  34. * Alexander Pope: The Poetical Works (1829)
  35. * Matthew Prior: The Poetical Works (1829)
  36. David Lester Richardson: Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems Partly Written in India (1827)
  37. Saint-Pierre: Paul and Virginia & The Indian Cottage (1832)
  38. * William Shenstone: The Poetical Works (1831)
  39. Charlotte Smith: Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems (1829)
  40. * William Somervile: The Chase, and Other Poems (1831)
  41. Laurence Sterne: A Sentimental Journey (1833)
  42. * Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (1830)
  43. * James Thomson: The Seasons; A Poem (1831)
  44. Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1828)
  45. * Isaac Watts: Horæ Lyricæ: Poems Chiefly of the Lyric Kind: in Three Books (1829)
  46. * Edward Young: The Complaint, or Night Thoughts (1826)


  1. The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside, M.D. (1831)
    2. Mark Akenside (born ... Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland — died ... London) was a poet and physician, best known for his poem The Pleasures of Imagination, an eclectic philosophical essay ... Written in blank verse derived from Milton’s, it was modelled (as its preface states) on the Roman poets Virgil (the Georgics) and Horace (the Epistles). A debt to Virgil is certainly apparent in the way in which Akenside invests an essentially unpoetic subject — the abstractions of philosophic thought — with poetic form, through studied elevation of language and with considerable grace.
    - Britannica: Mark Akenside
    He was the son of a butcher, but talent and hard work raised him high in the world. As far as his work goes, Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Dr. Mark Akenside: The Pleasures of Imagination (1744 / 1754)



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    Paul van Somer: Francis Bacon

    (1561-1626)

  2. Francis Bacon: Essays: Moral, Economical and Political (1832)
    3. Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban ... was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of natural philosophy, guided by the scientific method, and his works remained influential throughout the Scientific Revolution.
    - Wikipedia: Francis Bacon
    It's hard to imagine that Bacon has a very wide readership nowadays besides academics specialising in the history of ideas (unless, that is, he really did write Shakespeare ...) His utopian novel New Atlantis, published posthumously in 1626, was quite influential in its time but his Essays remain his most popular work.

    Francis Bacon: Essays (1597 / 1696)



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    Sir Joshua Reynolds: James Beattie

    (1735-1803)

  3. James Beattie: The Minstrel; and Other Poems (1828)
    4. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    James Beattie: The Minstrel, or The Pogress of Genius (1771-74)



  4. Robert Bloomfield: The Farmer’s Boy (1800)
    5. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Robert Bloomfield: The Farmer’s Boy: A Rural Poem (1800)



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    Alexander Nasmyth: Robert Burns

    (1759-1796)

  5. The Poetical Works of Robert Burns; as Collected and Published by Dr. Currie; with Additional Poems (1829)
    6. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Dr. Currie, ed.: The Poetical Works of Robert Burns (1800 / 1821)



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    Pieter Borsseler: Samuel Butler

    (1613-1680)

  6. Samuel Butler: Hudibras, A Poem (1829)
    7. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Samuel Butler: Hudibras (1663-78 / 1764)



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    Richard Westall: Lord Byron

    (1788-1824)

  7. Poems by the Right Honourable Lord Byron; with his Memoirs [Hours of Idleness; English Bards and Scotch Reviews, A Satire; Poems on Domestic Circumstances, &c.] (1829)
    8. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".



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    Richard Evans: George Canning

    (1770-1827)

  8. The Poetical Works of the Right Hon. George Canning (1830)
    9. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    George Canning: Poetical Works (1823 / 1825)



  9. The Poetical Works of William Collins (1831)
    10. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".



  10. Madame Cottin: Elizabeth; or the Exiles of Siberia (1835)
    11. A "wildly romantic but irreproachably moral tale", according to Nuttall's Encyclopaedia.

    Madame Cottin: Elizabeth or the Exiles of Siberia (1806 / c.1880s)



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    Lemuel Francis Abbott: William Cowper

    (1731-1800)

  11. Poems by William Cowper, Esq. (1832)
    12. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    William Cowper: Poems (1782)



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    Henry William Pickersgill: George Crabbe

    (1754-1832)

  12. George Crabbe: The Village (1833)
    13. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    George Crabbe: The Village (1783)



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    Demosthenes

    (384–322 BCE)

  13. Demosthenes: The Orations (1831)
    14. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Thomas Leland: The Orations of Demosthenes (1756-70 / 1777)



  14. William Dodd: The Beauties of Shakespeare: Regularly Selected From Each Play, with a General Index, Digesting Them Under Proper Heads (1833)
    15. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    William Dodd: The Beauties of Shakespeare (1752 / 1821)



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    Sir Godfrey Kneller: John Dryden

    (1631-1700)

  15. The Poetical Works of John Dryden (1830)
    16. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    John Dryden, trans.: The Works of Virgil (1697 / 1716)



  16. William Falconer: The Shipwreck; A Poem (1831)
    17. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    William Falconer: The Shipwreck (1762 / 1811)



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    Godfrey Kneller: John Gay

    (1685-1732)

  17. John Gay: Fables and other Poems (1832)
    18. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    John Gay: Fables (1727)



  18. Gifford’s Baviad & Mæviad: Pasquin vs. Faulder: Epistle to Peter Pindar: with the Author's Memoir of His Own Life (1829)
    19. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    William Gifford: The Baviad & Mæviad (1791-95 / 1800)



  19. [Goethe]: The Sorrows of Werter [Werther] (1834)
    20. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Goethe: The Sorrows of Werter [Werther] (1774 / 1779)



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    Sir Joshua Reynolds: Oliver Goldsmith

    (1728-1774)

  20. Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield (1833)
    21. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766 / 1773)


  21. The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B. (1832)
    22. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Oliver Goldsmith: The Deserted Village (1770)



  22. James Grahame: The Sabbath, and Other Poems (1829)
    23. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    James Grahame: The Sabbath and Other Poems (1804 / 1817)



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    Thomas Gray

    (1716-1771)

  23. The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray (1832)
    24. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".



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    James Hammond

    (1710-1742)

  24. The Poetical Works of James Hammond (1830)
    25. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".



  25. William Hayley, Esq.: The Triumphs of Temper; A Poem in Six Cantos (1829)
    26. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    William Hayley: The Triumphs of Temper (1781 / 1803)



  26. Samuel Johnson: Rasselas: A Tale (1835)
    27. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Dr. Samuel Johnson: The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale (1759)



  27. The Poetical Remains of Henry Kirke White of Nottingham, Late of St. John's College, Cambridge (1831)
    28. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".



  28. John Langhorne: Theodosius and Constantia (1832)
    29. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    John Langhorne: Theodosius and Constantia (1763-64)



  29. The Poetical Works of Lord Lyttelton (1830)
    30. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".



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    Daniel Somerville: Rev. John Logan

    (1748-1788)

  30. Poems; and Runnamede, A Tragedy, by The Rev. John Logan, F.R.S.E. (1829)
    31. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Rev. John Logan: Poems (1781)



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    William Mason

    (1724-1797)

  31. William Mason, M.A.: The English Garden: A Poem in Four Books (1829)
    32. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    William Mason: The English Garden (1783)



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    John Milton

    (1608-1674)

  32. The Poetical Works of John Milton: Complete in One Volume (1835)
    33. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Rev. Henry John Todd, ed.: The Poetical Works of John Milton (1801)



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    Hannah More

    (1745-1833)

  33. Hannah More: Sacred Dramas; The Search after Happiness; and Other Poems (1829)
    34. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Hannah More: Sacred Dramas (1786-87)



  34. The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. (1829)
    35. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Dr. Warburton, ed.: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope (1812)



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    Thomas Hudson: Matthew Prior

    (1664-1721)

  35. The Poetical Works of Matthew Prior (1829)
    36. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".



  36. David Lester Richardson, Esq.: Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems Partly Written in India (1827)


    37. David Lester Richardson: Sonnets and Other Poems (1827)


    As Raha Rafii remarks in his fascinating 2023 essay "Folly":
    Richardson was certainly deserving of the mild praise from the journals that were blurbed at the end of his collection. ‘A volume of miscellaneous poems, many of which possess much beauty’, wrote The Star in typical English restraint.
    Along with the requisite love and memorial poems, for every idyllic reference to England — with the distinct exception of London, where ‘morning wakes, and through the misty air in sickly radiance struggles’ — Richardson included somber reflections on various parts of India. Always in juxtaposition to the verdant, life-giving hills of southwest England, they were places that were marked by their misery and desertion — with endnotes (!) to let the English reader know precisely how awful they were. Despite waxing poetic about the morning and evening light in the various sonnets written ‘in India’, Richardson had less gracious opinions of the places and peoples upon which it fell.

    David Lester Richardson: Sonnets and Other Poems (1827)



  37. Saint-Pierre: Paul and Virginia & The Indian Cottage (1832)
    38. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: Paul et Virginie (1788)



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    Edward Alcock: William Shenstone

    (1714-1763)

  38. The Poetical Works of William Shenstone (1831)
    39. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    William Shenstone: The Poetical Works (1771)



  39. Charlotte Smith: Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems (1829)
    40. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Charlotte Smith: Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Essays (1784)



  40. William Somervile: The Chase, and Other Poems (1831)
    41. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    William Somervile: The Chase: A Poem (1786)



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    Sir Joshua Reynolds: Laurence Sterne

    (1713-1768)

  41. Laurence Sterne: A Sentimental Journey (1833)
    42. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Laurence Sterne: A Sentimental Journey (1768)



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    Charles Jervas: Jonathan Swift

    (1667-1745)

  42. Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (1830)
    43. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (1726)



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    Stephen Slaughter: James Thomson (1736)

    (1700-1748)

  43. James Thomson: The Seasons; A Poem (1831)
    44. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    James Thomson: The Seasons (1730)



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    John Giles Eccardt: Horace Walpole (1755)

    (1717-1797)

  44. Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1828)
    45. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1764)



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    Isaac Watts

    (1674-1748)

  45. Isaac Watts, D.D.: Horæ Lyricæ: Poems Chiefly of the Lyric Kind: in Three Books (1829)
    46. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats".

    Isaac Watts: Horæ Lyricæ (1706)



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    Joseph Highmore: Edward Young

    (1683-1765)

  46. Edward Young: The Complaint, or Night Thoughts (1826)
    47. Night-Thoughts had a very high reputation for many years after its publication, but is now best known for a major series of illustrations by William Blake in 1797.


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Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, & William Wallis: The Temple of the Muses, Finsbury Square (1828)
The office of the publishers, Jones & Co. The building carries four signs: Temple of the Muses / University Edition of British Classic Authors / Metropolitan Improvements / Jones and Compy. The print is dedicated: "To Henry Brougham, Esq., M.P., from whose suggestion the series of "Jones' University Edition of British Classic Authors" was commenced".
Jones & Co. were certainly never weary of packaging and repackaging their wares in increasingly grandiose editions, witness the following advertisement from vol. III of my four-volume set:


Advertisement (vol. III)




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