Fragmenta Aurea. A Collection of all the Incomarable Peeces, written by Sir John Suckling.

£2,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Wing S6126; Pforzheimer 996; Hayward, English Poetry, 84. The first state (A) of the title with the first two words in even upper-case letters and a rule beneath the date and the incorrect spelling “allowred” on A3v. The second state of the title to Aglaura with the imprint “for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold by Humphrey Moseley” (the first state has Walkley’s initials). William Marshall’s engraved portrait is derived from Van Dyck’s full-length portrait of Suckling holding a folio of Shakespeare open at Hamlet , now in the Frick Collection, New York, the only known portrait of Suckling. It is the first state, before the addition of some heavier re-incised lines. L. A. Beaurline Thomas Clayton, “Notes on Early Editions of *Fragmenta Aurea,”* in Studies in Bibliography, 23 (1970), pp. 165-70. Fragmenta Aurea is a collection of 32 of Suckling’s poems (47pp.), 29 “Letters to divers Eminent Personages” (44pp.), “An Account of Religion by Reason. A Discourse upon Occasion presented to the Earl of Dorset” (17pp; on Socinianism), and three plays (“Aglaura” [with the alternative final act], “The Goblins A Comedy” and “Brennoralt A Tragedy”). This miscellany comprises the bulk of Suckling’s attributed works - a number of poems in particular and another dramatic piece were added to later editions. It was published by Humphrey Moseley, a most interesting bookseller who is closely connected with the dissemination of royalist texts during the dark years of the Commonwealth, including

• Printing: first
• Binding: Hardcover

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