THE CENCI. A Tragedy in Five Acts.

Third edition. Handsomely bound in contemporary full diced calf, the boards ruled in gilt, the spine with four raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt and with red morocco title label lettered in gilt. Ownership inscription and introductory note by the author William St Clair in pencil to the front free endpaper. A very good copy indeed, the binding square and firm with a little rubbing to the joints and corners. The contents with a contemporary owner's name in ink to the front free endpaper, the occasional light pencil annotation to page margins and very faint spotting to the preliminary pages are otherwise in very good order and clean throughout. An attractive copy.

An early pirated edition of Shelley's great verse drama (the third edition of the work overall). The first edition, consisting of 250 copies, was printed in Italy in 1819, with a second edition published in 1821 (making it the only work to go into a second edition during the poet's lifetime). Buxton-Foreman writes that the present edition is "a curious and somewhat uncommon little book, prettily but roughly printed from the second edition" (Buxton-Foreman, The Shelley Library, p.93). Only three institutional copies of this edition are recorded in Copac (Oxford, Eton, and Univ. Leeds). Provenance: from the library of William St Clair (1937-2021).