The Culprit Fay: And Other Poems

New York: George Dearborn, 1835. First edition. 8vo. [6], 84 pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait and vignette title-page. Publisher's deluxe binding, black morocco, gilt- and blind-tooled, gilt lyre and cherub centerpiece (as in cloth trade binding) gilt board edges and turn-ins, glazed endpapers, a.e.g., in custom blue morocco-backed slipcase and chemise; light rubbing to extremities, endpapers discolored, frontispiece offset to engraved title. First edition of the first collection of Drake's poetry, published 15 years after his early death from consumption, here in the publisher's deluxe morocco gilt binding. Drake (1795-1920) was a physician and pharmacist and an early member of the Knickerbocker Group. His only lifetime publications were "The Croaker Papers," anonymous political satires written in collaboration with Fitz-Green Halleck. Drake requested that his poetry manuscripts be destroyed following his death; they were instead preserved by his wife and eventually shepherded to print by his daughter, who dedicated the present collection to Halleck. Contains the fantastical epic title poem of elf-maid love, which for many years had circulated in manuscript, the unfinished "Leon" with its Byronic notes, the popular and patriotic "The American Flag," and several other fugitive pieces. "The Culprit Fay" was treated to a lengthy and largely critical review by Poe in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1836.The publisher's deluxe binding uses the identical cherub and lyre centerpiece tool as the trade cloth binding.PROVENANCE: Frank Hogan (book-label, his sale Parke-Bernet, 1945); Mrs. J. Insley Blair (Blairhame book-label)REFERENCE: BAL 4825; Sabin 20860