ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. A SATIRE. ['THE FIRST COPY SOLD'].

First edition, first printing (as indicated by line 47 of the poem reading 'Despatch', later changed to 'Dispatch'). Inscribed in ink to the head of the title page "Saml. Fk. Gray - The First Copy Sold". 12mo. Contemporary green cloth with gilt morocco title label to the spine. With the preface leaf but with the half title discarded. Additional inscription to title page in the same hand: "Lord Byron the Author of this poem", and the name of a subsequent owner- Gray's daughter - in her own hand: "Charlotte Frances Gray". A very good copy, the binding square and tight with a little marking to the boards. Expertly (almost imperceptibly) re-backed with the spine neatly re-laid. The contents with foxing to the endpapers and some minor marking to the gutter of the title page are otherwise in very good order and clean throughout.

A remarkable copy of the first edition of Byron's major satirical work, this being, according to its contemporary purchaser, the first copy ever sold. The writer of the inscription must be Samuel Frederick Gray (1766-1828), the naturalist and pharmacologist. Gray had suffered from ill-health as a child and was taught by his mother and by his own efforts, but did not succeed in completing medical training, so tried various careers including attempting to start an assay office, lecturing on science, writing on botany and - at about this time - setting up a bookshop in the Strand, London. With this final venture in mind, it is easy to imagine him being particularly attentive to the sale of a new poem, which he presumably bought from Cawthorn on the morning of publication: the assistant, or perhaps Cawthorn himself, must have told him that he was the first customer to buy a copy. The work was published anonymously in March, although the exact date of its issue is unknown. It was, however, certainly printed by 1st March, because Byron inscribed a copy to Scrope Berdmore Davies on that day (Randolph, Studies for a Byron Bibliography, p.14); it seems reasonable to assume that the book was published either on that date, or very soon afterwards. It is certainly most uncommon to encounter such a statement from a contemporary buyer as found here. By making the decision to inscribe the present book, Gray has served to mark a key moment in the development of Byron's work, as well as in Romantic literature more broadly. For 'English Bards', a blistering satire written in response to Henry Brougham's anonymous criticism of his first published poetry collection, 'Hours of Idleness' (1807) in the Edinburgh Review, was arguably a major turning point for Byron's career, stimulating him to produce something with such passion and care that it became a far greater success than his previous endeavours. An important, evocative copy.