Item #104400 The Triumphs Of Temper. A Poem: in six Cantos. The twelfth edition, corrected. With New Original Designs, by Maria Flaxman. William. Hayley Blake, William.

The Triumphs Of Temper. A Poem: in six Cantos. The twelfth edition, corrected. With New Original Designs, by Maria Flaxman.

1803. Chichester: J. Seagrave for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1803.

Roy. 8vo (9.5 x 5.75 ins.), xii, 165 pp. With 6 engraved plates by William Blake after Maria Flaxman. Later half green morocco, gilt top, other edges untrimmed, an excellent copy with wide margins.

§ A large-paper copy, unusually clean and with fine dark impressions of the plates. First edition of Blake’s engravings after these dreamy and slightly surreal illustrations. Bentley, BB, 471A. Essick, CBI, XLIII. DNB notes of Hayley: “Possibly his greatest achievement, however, was his didactic poem Triumphs of Temper (1781), which ‘was to reform the entire feminine mind of England by the advice’ (Bishop, 53). This allegorical work aspired, in rhyming couplets, to teach young women the virtues of a pleasant nature. Its advice was heeded by some: Emma Hamilton thanked Hayley ‘for the lessons she had learnt from the poem’ (P. Jaffe, Drawings by George Romney, 1978, 44) and asked Romney to inform Hayley that his poem ‘made me Lady H. … for Sir W. minds more temper than beauty’ (ibid.). Triumphs of Temper ran into fourteen editions and proved to be the most durable of all his publications.”. Item #104400

Price: $2,750.00

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