THE WORKS OF GEORGE HERBERT

Reprint. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, publisher's monogram in blind to the front panel, in dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt sharp, the contents bright and clean throughout. Very lightly spotted to the upper edge of the page block, with three or four spots to the fore-edge. In the bright, clean dustwrapper, nicked and rubbed to corners with a couple of small nicks to the upper spine tip. Not price-clipped (50s / £2.50 net to the front flap). A very nice copy indeed of Hutchinson's great edition of Herbert.

First issued in 1941, Francis Ernest Hutchinson's edition includes all Herbert's poems in English and Latin, the prose 'A Priest to His Temple', a section of Letters, and some of Herbert's translations, all meticulously introduced and annotated. The jacket states that "[t]he editor's primary concern has been to establish the text of 'The Temple' [the collection posthumously published in 1633] and the occasional writings by a complete collation of all extant manuscripts and of the early printed editions." While Helen Wilcox's more recent edition of 'The English Poems of George Herbert' (2007) is essential for Herbert scholars, Hutchinson's more comprehensive volume (warmly acknowledged by Wilcox) remains the standard one-volume scholarly edition of Herbert.