WYCHERLEY, William.

£8,750 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Miscellany Poems: As Satyrs, Epistles, Love-Verses, Songs, Sonnets, &c. First edition, large paper presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the first blank, "For the best friend in the world of her Sex, from her most oblig'd old friend, and humble Servant, W: Wycherley", and handsomely bound for presentation.Best known for his salacious play The Country Wife, Wycherley (1641-1716) wrote most of his verses for the "Merry Gang", a small coterie of courtiers and wits around John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester. "Many of Wycherley's surviving poems, light-hearted, mediocre vers de société depicting him drinking, gambling, and having affairs, were produced for circulation within this group, membership of which proved decisive for Wycherley's literary career" (ODNB). Though popular in manuscript, when eventually printed in 1704 the verses received, in Wycherley's words to Alexander Pope, "a poetical Damning". "Poems on a woman's 'Fair Back-Side' and on another's 'Fine Breasts' were entirely at odds with the new, chaster sensibility" and they were not reprinted until the Nonesuch collected edition of Wycherley's writings in 1924.The recipient was possibly Mary Lutrell (d. 1722), the heiress of Hartland Abbey in north-west Devon; the address is inscribed at the head of the title page. Luttrell married Paul Orchard in 1704, and their family remained at Hartland Abbey through the 18th century. Pforzheimer speculates that there are in "at least ten" presentation copies on large paper

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