Swinburne's 1st book, printed in 250 copies & ready for issue by late Oct. 1860, when less than 20 copies were distributed to the author & reviewers (D.G. Rossetti to Wm. Allingham, 1 Nov. [1860]: "Have you seen a new vol. - however I'm not quite sure the copies are all out yet - viz: 2 plays by Algernon Swinburne?" [Fredeman, Correspondence of DGR II, p.325; see also Wise, Literary Anecdotes II, p.298]). The copies were not "all out yet" because, upon receiving his, Swinburne decided the title was misleading & asked his publisher to alter it. Pickering acceded, & the 1st trade issue included a cancelled titlepage which reads The Queen-Mother. Rosamond. Two Plays.
All evidence indicates that this copy was part of the suppressed 1st issue, & was included with the bound & unbound sheets later acquired by Moxon. According to Quaritch (cats. 517 & 530), its integral 6-line Errata leaf ("Errata" & 5 lines of corrections, pp.[ix-x]) is one of the points which identify our copy as unique ("This leaf has not previously been noticed in any bibliography. In all other copies we have seen there are only three lines of errata. The two additional lines on this leaf are interesting;... however, neither of these obvious errors has been corrected and they still appear in modern reprints as in the first edition"). In 1956 Norman Colbeck offered a copy (New Series cat. #1, item 60) which included the bookplate of Sir Baldwin Leighton, Bart.; in his cat. entry Colbeck indicated that his copy "was long considered to be unique, but in 1954 another turned up, and was sold by Sotheby. It was exactly the same, save that it lacked its printed title-label. It is surprising that this title-page was unknown to Wise, and it seems probable that only these two copies exist." Our copy is the 3rd known example of this exceedingly rare title.
