POPE, Alexander.

£650 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Works. An attractively bound set belonging to Agnes Bland Herbert (1760-1779) of Muckross, Ireland. As the 19th-century pen annotation to the pastedown of Volume I notes, Agnes was the daughter of the vicar of Killarney, who married the much older barrister Thomas Herbert in 1776. The binding of this set suggests that, before her early death in 1779, Agnes was catching up on the education she had missed out on. Thomas Herbert's niece Dorothea recalled their marriage: "My father received an account that his elder brother Mr Herbert of Muckrus was going to be married a second time to Miss Bland, a young obscure girl without fortune and younger than his daughter. In the midst of frost and snow my father set off for Killarney but it was too late for the business was concluded and my father had only the poor satisfaction of giving his brother a blow on the occasion. After two years however Mr Herbert and his young wife died, leaving two orphan boys in addition to his numerous family" (Retrospections, p. 27).

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