John Gower | De Confessione Amantis, 1532, the Berland copy

John Gower

De Confessione Amantis. London: printed by Thomas Berthelet, 1532

Second edition, folio (302 x 191 mm), title-page within woodcut border [McKerrow & Ferguson 26] (annotated "The imitation of olde Chaucer" in a sixteenth-century hand and with 23-line marginal biographical note in a seventeenth-century hand), woodcut initials, woodcut tail-piece at foot of dedication to Henry VIII, a number of early modern annotations in several hands, modern brown morocco gilt by Scroll Club N.Y., gilt-ruled covers, spine with raised bands in six compartments, second compartment lettered in gilt, the rest tooled in gilt, gilt edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, housed in a modern brown quarter morocco case, title-page with marginal soiling and tear at lower outer margin (not affecting text), occasional marginal soiling and dampstaining, inkstains to some leaves, B3 with closed tear between columns of text, J6 with 2 inch tear at lower outer margin (not affecting text)

A TALL COPY of the second edition of Gower's De Confessione Amantis, following Caxton's first of 1483. One of the most important works of fourteenth-century English literature, Gower's only English poem was written in eight-syllable rhymed lines between 1386-1390, and includes more than a hundred separate tales drawn from a wide range of classical and medieval sources. The second edition, printed by Thomas Berthelet, is generally regarded as a textual improvement over the earlier edition, providing "a good example of workmanlike printing, much above the average English work of the period" (Jackson). In the eighth book, the story of Pericles, drawn from the Gesta Romanorum, is told under the name of "Apollonius of Tyre" (verso fol. 173ff.); this would later provide Shakespeare with the plot of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, first printed in 1609, a play in which Gower himself would appear as a chorus.

PROVENANCE:

Monogrammed initials "RR" in ink in early modern hand on verso of title-page; Sir Walter Rawlinson (1734-1805): armorial bookplate to verso of title-page; Robert Walsingham Martin: armorial bookplate, sold Parke-Bernet, New York, 12 November 1963, lot 335; bought from Mike Papantonio, 18 January 1972: purchase note in pencil on flyleaf; purchased from Seven Gables Bookshop, NYC, 13 December 1972: purchase note in pencil on flyleaf; Abel E. Berland: bookplate and purchase note in pencil on flyleaf, his sale, Christie's New York, 8 October 2001, lot 53

LITERATURE:

Bartlett 192; Hayward 4; Pforzheimer 421; STC 12143 STC 12143; ESTC S106702; Grolier/Langland to Wither 96