[Manuscript Original Poetry]. Poetical Works

[n.p, England, likely London or Kent], 1827. Very good with some soiling to vellum and minor finger smudges to some of the pages. A fascinating and unique volume.. Lovely manuscript volume of amateur poetry in a single, neat, readable hand, bound in full vellum.

The poems are dated between 1827-33, making Child a teenager of fourteen when the first poem was written (though the paper is watermarked 1829, so some, if not all, of the poems must have been transcribed after initially written).

A young man of immense privilege, Child was later a wealthy coal merchant, the peerage noting he held the offices of Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace and purchased and lived at Bromley Palace (where his son was 1st Baronet, and his great grandson was 3rd Baronet, the late actor Jeremy Child).

The poems contain titles such as On Edward's Falling from a Ladder and Written on Breaking my own Nose Against the Wall, many addressed to Anne Holden (Child married an Ann in 1850, but not this Anne) as well as others with female names, to more somber poems such as Lines Written on Hearing of the Death of Miss Roberts.

The final poem in the book is again addressed to Miss Holden, and suggests the romance was doomed, as he wishes her "fare thee well" one final time. Child even includes (creepy) prefaces to some of the poems, one in particular states that "the following lines were written on the occasion of my having one morning (June 7, 1831) peeped into the parlour window at Mr. Holdens, & detected Miss Ann, with her petticoats, as Mathew says 'pretty particularly considerably' high, & intently engaged in tying her Garter, she was too much occupied to see me, & I therefore enjoyed a very leisure survey of one of the prettiest legs in all Christendom, it was an occasion that I could hardly suffer to pass without comment, & the same evening she was presented with these verses, which she thought 'ungenteel.'"

The poems reflect a range of emotions and are journal-like in addressing and responding to events in his everyday life rather than abstract concepts.

Small 4to. [4], 104pp. + 42 leaves of ruled blank pages. On John Hall watermarked paper (Austen was another user of Hall paper as noted by the Morgan).