DALACOURT, otherwise DE-LA-COUR, James.

£2,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

A Prospect of Poetry: First edition, a finely bound dedication copy, inscribed by the Earl of Orrery on the front flyleaf: "sent to Me by the Author from Corke. 1734". De-La-Cour wrote A Prospect of Poetry while studying for his MA at Trinity College, Dublin. It became his best-known work and the only one reissued during his lifetime.James De-La-Cour (1709–c. 1785; styled Dalacourt on the title page here), spent most of his life in County Cork and was both clergyman and poet. His verse, containing "many beautiful pastoral descriptions ornamented with subtle classical allusions", made him "greatly esteemed in polite society" (DIB). His dedicatee, John Boyle (1707–1762), 5th Earl of Orrery and later Earl of Cork, was a noted literary figure, a friend of Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Samuel Johnson, and an author in his own right.Provenance: Carl H. Pforzheimer Library; Gerald E. Slater (sale, Christie's New York, 12 February 1982, lot 49). Stephen C. Massey, purchased from Ximenes, 1982.

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