Author:
Philip James Bailey (1816-1902), Victorian poet, author of ‘Festus’ and considered the father of the ‘spasmodic’ school of verse
Publication details:
‘Blackheath / May 14th. 1888.’
Bailey’s entry in the Oxford DNB describes the ‘remarkable popularity’ of the second edition of Festus in America: ‘seventeen ‘editions’ of a version pirated in Boston were called for in the first nine years, and it was also reprinted numerous times in Philadelphia, Louisville, and New York. Bailey became something of a 'lion' for visiting Americans of the transcendental stamp’, with Hawthorne visiting in the 1850s. 1p, 8vo. On brittle woodpulp paper, now discoloured with chipping to edges (resulting in loss to the word ‘Festus’ at the head) and with closed tears to the two folds.
