Robinson, Phil

The Poets' Birds, The Poets' Beasts, and The Poets and Nature: Reptiles, Fishes, and Insects [3 Volume Set]

London: Chatto and Windus, 1883-1893.

Hardcover. Complete in three volumes, this set of anthologies forms a veritable ark of poetry, mythology, and folklore of the animal world, in particular consulting the great English poets, from Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton to the Romantics—Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson—and between, all on the subject of: birds, those "plumy songsters" (Savage) and "commoners of air" (Burns); beasts (including lions, bears, wolves, horses, herds, dog, and cats); reptiles (crocodiles, turtles, snakes, lizards, and frogs), fishes (including "fish-monsters" and dolphins), and insects (spanning butterflies, spiders, honey bees, and more).

7 3/4" X 5 1/4". x, 490pp; 356pp; x, 300pp, plus 32pp ads to each volume. All three volumes bound in pale blue cloth over boards, with birds, beasts, and reptiles, fish, and insects stamped in dark brown respectively to upper boards and spines, with spines lettered in gilt. The Poets' Beasts is also titled in dark brown to upper board. Moderate wear to bindings, with bumping to rubbed extremities, fraying to bottom corners, lean to sunned spines, some staining and soiling to cloth, and foxing to edges of text blocks. Bindings are firm and sound. Very occasional light toning or spot of foxing to pages, else unmarked. Good +. Item #16540

Price: $200.00