ELEGY Written In A Country Churchyard. Illustrated by Harry Fenn.

London: Elliot Sock, 62 Paternoster Row, E.C., No Date [Circa 1885]. First Printing of this Edition. Octavo, bound in full vellum, front & rear panels decorated in green, front panel lettered in gold, light brown floral endpapers. 31 unnumbered leaves, each text leaf delicately illustrated by Fenn; with a facsimile of one of the author's manuscripts for the poem in pocket at end. Accompanying the manuscript is a small pamphlet titled simply "Gray's Elegy" which discusses the poem and the manuscript. Although unstated, this was issued in an edition of only 250 copies, and this is the preferred binding state. Browning to frontispiece and title leaf from tissue guard; a few tiny chips to the edges of the rear free endpaper, vellum boards lightly bowed and with moderate soiling; a very good copy of a very attractive edition.

The present printed edittion of the ELEGY will commend itself to the lover of Gray as furnishing, by its illustrations, artistic representationns of the well-known passages of the poem and reminiscences of the scenes upon which it was written. Many of the illustrations in this edition of Gray's Elegy are from sketches taken at Stoke Pogis, the scene of the poem; and all of them were made especially for this edition. Concenring the MS facsimile: three manuscript copies are known to exist - the original rough draft, a copy in the British Museum, and the present fair copy, which is believed to have been made from the rough draft. The present MS is in the collection of the Gray MSS at Pembroke College, Cambridge and is perhaps the most interesting, as being the latest made by Gray it contains many important corrections of the first draft. A list of comparisons between the printed text and the MS is included in the accompanying small pamphlet.