Sonnets and Other Poems

Samuel Egerton Brydges

London : B. and J. White, 1795

[Contemporary signature of Mary Brydges on verso of front end page.] Bound in leather. Gilt bordered. Marbled end pages. Hardcover. Poor binding. Boards detached. Edges chipped. xii, 113 p., 16 cm. 

Sir Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges (1762-1837) was an English writer and genealogist, chiefly important as the editor of rare Elizabethan and 17th-century texts, notably the 17th-century writer Edward Phillips's critical miscellany Theatrum Poetarum (1800; Theatre of Poets) and Robert Greene's autobiographical pamphlet Greenes Groatsworth of Witte (1813). He was F.S.A. (1795), M.P. for Maidstone (1812-18) and created baronet (1814). In 1810 he moved to Lee Priory in Kent, where he established a private press specializing in reprints of early literature. Upon losing his seat in Parliament, Brydges moved to Geneva to avoid creditors. Brydges' life was embittered both by his failure to satisfy his claim to the Chandos peerage and by his failure to achieve his ambitions as a romantic poet. 

This book dedicated to Brydges' first wife, was owned by his second wife Mary.