FLATMAN, Thomas.

£4,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Poems and Songs. First edition, in a well-preserved period binding, with the requisite blanks. The author was a qualified lawyer and a well-known artist of miniature portraits. However, verse was "the real centre of Flatman's creativity" (ODNB). Poems and Songs is a collection of pindarics, light verse, translations, and pastoral poems, and went through four editions before 1686.The printing company that produced the volume was part owned by a woman, Sarah Griffin. She inherited the business from her husband Edward in 1652 and ran it independently for the next 20 years, after which she went into joint ownership with one Bennet Griffin, possibly her son.Provenance: "F Wood", contemporary inscription on title page – Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1672–1739), his bookplate on title verso – Harold Greenhill (1893–1968), bookplate – David (1906–1988) and Lulu Borowitz, bookplate – Dr Gerald E. Slater, his sale, Christie's New York, 12 February 1982, lot 79 – Ximenes catalogue 109, May 1995 – Dr Howard Knohl (1937–2023), Fox Pointe, sale, Sotheby's New York 26 October 2016, lot 114 - Stephen C. Massey

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