Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, Poems (1870), Eustace Smith's Copy
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, POEMS
(London: F.S. Ellis, 1870). First edition, first trade issue
(indicated by its less common blue-on-white ep.s), 19 x 12.5cm (8vo),
in publisher's dark green fine net-grain cloth w/gilt
floral-&-trellis design (by the author) to covers & spine, gilt
title to spine, a.e. untrimmed, cover design repeated in dark blue on
white ep.s w/binder's ticket (Burn & Co., Kirby St.) to recto of
rear ep., [i-vii] viii-xi [xii], [1] 2-282 [283-284], [1-4 publ.
adverts] +8 blank leaves to rear. Printed by Strangeways &
Walden, London. Inscribed to verso of fr. ep.: "Eustace Smith.
Gosforth House, 1870." Binding Very Good (corner tips sl. worn,
fr. ep.s sl. browned, & PO's name to verso of fr. ep.); contents
Near Fine. Rossetti 17, Vaughan 11, Ashley IV 132, Ehrsam &
Deily 218, Fredeman 23.8, Fennell 20, Colbeck 15 (in dark blue
cloth). (Inv. #703) C$800 (2 other copies are also available)
The original purchaser, Thomas Eustace Smith MP, owned at least one of
DGR's drawings (a study for Pandora, Surtees 224A) & was
known to the poet by early April 1869, when DGR wrote to his wife
Eustacia accepting a dinner invitation for the 11th--he dined with them
at 28 Princes Gardens on at least one other occasion. However,
it appears that at some point Smith's wife, the sister-in-law of
Barbara Bodichon, rubbed DGR the wrong way: on 5 Dec. 1872 he wrote to
Ford Madox Brown: "Mrs. Eustace Smith is a nuisance I had rather drop"
(Doughty & Wahl 1265).
