Description

[003689] James, Nicholas. Poems on Several Occasions. Truro: Andrew Brice, 1742. First Edition. 16mo. Hardback. Good+. [12], 148pp. Contemporary calf, recently rebacked, smooth spine, divided into six panels by gilt double rules, title label to second panel, covers with two line gilt border

Leather repairs to top edge of upper cover, corners bumped and worn. Internally lightly browned but generally clean. List of subscribers to rear, with one name added in manuscript at the end, Mr. William Hext?, of St. Austle, a clock & watchmaker (there is a Fran. John Hext of Bodmin listed as another subscriber), but another copy seen in a catalogue notes the name as Hart

Apparently the first book printed in Truro

The printer, Andrew Brice, was born in Exeter and apprenticed there to Joseph Bliss, and only seems to have been in Truro for a brief period, with the vast majority of his output having an Exeter imprint (see BBTI and ESTC)

The poems include titles like The Complaints of Poverty, Wrestling, a Poem, The Atheist, and To His Book About to be Printed. The wrestling poem is twenty pages long, and the To His Book poem has a section about bookbinding; ‘The binder too (if I could start), Should on the cover show his art, The leaves their gilded splendor show, And on the back the letter glow, These with our modern dealers hit, Who think the lid displays the wit”

ESTC shows six locations in the UK, ten in the US and one other. Not in Johnson, though he did have a copy in the three volume catalogue English Verse 1701-1750 that he produced with Ximenes Rare Books (priced at £2500); Foxon, page 387