COBBOLD, Elizabeth.

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

Six Narrative Poems by Eliza Knipe. First edition of the third book by the poet, abolitionist, and geologist, with evidence of early female ownership: the initial blank is inscribed "Mary King" in a late 18th-century hand. The collection contains "Atomboka and Omaza: An African Story", which has since been described as a "remarkably powerful example of anti-slavery verse" (Dellarosa, p. 29). Six Narrative Poems was published by Elizabeth Cobbold (née Knipe - 1767-1824) when she was just 20 years old. The work is dedicated to Joshua Reynolds, whom Cobbold had apparently met in a London bookshop: she would later befriend Constable, and the subscribers list here records "George Romney, esq". Despite Cobbold's young age, her sketch of Omaza, who "wears a necklace made of the teeth of her conquered opponents, is one of the more striking figures in abolitionist poetry" (Richardson). Mary King has proven difficult to trace, although she is surely a relation of the "Mr. King" recorded in the list of subscribers.

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