A SELECTION FROM THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON

First edition in this form. Signed and inscribed by Algernon Swinburne to the painter John William Archibold. Publisher's original red cloth over bevelled boards, elaborately decorated in gilt to the upper board, and blind to the lower board after a design by John Leighton, titles and decoration in gilt to the spine. Portrait frontispiece. Decorative chapter headings and footers. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with a some bumping, small splits and minor fraying at the spine tips and corners, the cloth a little marked. The contents, with the decorative bookplate of Scottish clothing merchant, textile manufacturer and noted patron of the arts, Thomas Glen Arthur (1857-1907) to the front pastedown, Swinburne's presentation inscription to the half title, and some light spotting to the margins throughout, are otherwise clean throughout. The inner hinges to the front and rear are cracked but holding. An attractive volume of Byron's poetry, published in 'Moxon's Miniature Poets' series. An interesting association copy.

Inscribed by the editor and author of the preface in black ink on the half-title: "J. W. Inchbold / from his affectionate / A. C. Swinburne." Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), the English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic, was, alongside Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris, a leading figure of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in poetry. He was nominated annually for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1903 to 1909, and his work exerted a profound influence on later Aesthetic and Decadent poets of the fin de siècle, including Oscar Wilde and Ernest Dowson. The recipient of Swinburne's presentation is the Yorkshire-born artist John William Inchbold (1830–1888). His style was shaped by the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and he counted among his admirers and patrons such figures as Tennyson, Browning, Lord Houghton, Sir Henry Thompson, and John Ruskin. Swinburne later honoured Inchbold's memory with a funeral ode, "In Memory of John William Inchbold," published in Poems and Ballads, Third Series (1889).