THE POEMS OF ROBERT SOUTHWELL S. J.

First edition, first printing. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, with the publisher's monogram in blind to the front panel. In the dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt sharp, the contents clean throughout. Very light spotting to the upper edge of the page block. In the near fine dustwrapper, with a couple of light marks to the spine and a touch of rubbing to outer corners. Not price-clipped (55s. net to the front flap). A very attractive copy of a scarce volume.

When this edition of Southwell's poems emerged in the late 1960s, it was a significant event for early modern literary scholars and lovers of sixteenth century poetry alike. Southwell, the great recusant poet, was already well known, a great deal having been written about him, but until then there had never been a satisfactory modern edition of the writings. As Joan Grundy notes in her review of the volume (Review of English Studies, Vol. 19.[75], 1968), the reasons for the delay were familiar, primarily that of of establishing the texts. "The sources, both manuscript and printed, are numerous; the problems, of their provenance and reliability, complex. The circumstances of Southwell's life (his work as a Jesuit missionary priest from 1586 until 1592, followed by his close imprisonment from June 1592 until his execution in February 1595) cast doubt on the nature and extent of his personal responsibility both for the distribution of the poems and for the form in which they have come down to us." The poems were written between 1586 and 1592. Southwell was active during these years as an undercover missionary in Elizabeth's England. He was arrested in June 1592 and convicted for high treason (he had refused to take the Oath of Supremacy and to repudiate the Catholic Church). He was hanged at Tyburn in 1595. The poems are printed here for the first time in the order in which they were arranged for spiritual instruction, the text based on substantive editions and collated with the surviving MSS sources.