The WORKS of JOHN DRYDEN Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Illustrated With Note, Historical, Critical, And Explanatory, And A Life Of The Author, By SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart.

Edinburgh: Printed For Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh; and Hurst, Robinson and Co. London, 1821. Second Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Complete in eighteen volumes. Octavo. Tan calf over boards with double gilt ruled covers. Ornate gilt tooled spines with five raised bands and two contrasting labels. Marbled end papers and page edges. Volume I with portrait frontispiece of Dryden engraved by W.H. Lizars. Volume VI includes a fold out plate "The Solemn Mock Procession of the POPE Cardinals, Jesuits, Friars Etc. Through the CITY OF LONDON November 17th 1679." with a half width separation along one of the folds. Each volume with the bookplate of (truncated) Florence de Wolfe Sampson by E.D. French (who also engraved the Grolier Club's own bookplate as well as bookplates for many of its members). Some foxing to frontispiece and title page, Vol I, otherwise very good.John Dryden (1631-1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was appointed England's first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. - wikipedia. (Inventory #: 386)