Christmas With The Poets: A Collection Of Songs, Carols, and Descriptive Verses, Relating To The Festival Of Christmas

London: David Bogue, 1851. First Edition. Near fine in its original Victorian full dark brown leather covered boards with five raised bands on the spine with black stamped rules and gilt text in the compartments and elaborate black stamped embossing on the boards. A small quarto of 9 1/4 by 6 1/4 inches with the edges of the text block gilt and with gilt dentelles on the leather turn-ins.and marbled end sheets. Missing from the book is the engraved title page as it appears to have not been bound-in to begin with. The contents are tightly bound-in and the entire text is extremely neat and clean without any prior owenship markings. 187 pages each decorated with a gold border around the print. This is a major anthology of Christmas songs and poems that begins with Anglo-Norman songs and ends with contemporary poets, with full explanatory notes of each piece, providing their histories and textual source all in context of evolving Christmas customs at different periods. This title includes works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Wither, Thorn, Cowper, Scott, Shelley, Wordsowrth, Thackeray and Tennyson. The engraved plates and vignettes are from illustrations by Birket Foster which were engraved by Vizetelly. Many of the plates and vignettes are tinted. Very scarce title in first edition in a beautiful example of a Victorian full leather binding.