Reliques of Irish Poetry: Consisting of Heroic Poems, Odes, Elegies, and Songs, translated into English Verse: with Notes Explanatory and Historical; and the Originals in the Irish Character. To which is subjoined An Irish Tale. By Miss Brooke.

A CULTURAL MILESTONE - FIRST PRINTED COLLECTION OF IRISH GAELIC LITERATURE
first edition 4to. xxvi, [2], 369, [1 (blank)]pp. plus an errata slip, contemporary tree calf, sympathetically rebacked, smooth spine panelled by bands of gilt rolls, large flower tool at panel centres, maroon morocco title label gilt, edges dyed green, light trace of old glue along gutter margin of title page, some light scattered foxing. A handsome copy.

ESTC t144089 BRADSHAW 2243 GILBERT, p.91. List of subscribers on p.xi- xxiii, including many figures distinguished in Irish cultural history and some in Britain and in Italy.
This and her friend and collaborator Joseph Walker's Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards (1786) together mark a new and significant movement in Irish culture. Inspired indirectly by the fabrications of Macpherson's Ossian and more directly by such as Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry they represent the first literary fruit in Ireland of the romantic movement. "Each, and more particularly [this book], is an important milestone in the later cultural history of the country and, in particular, in that Anglo-Irish component of the modern Irish nation. Both authors break new ground in that they direct attention away from the contemplation of the remote past to an observation of the contemporary Irish cultural scene and from historical speculation to literary appreciation of vernacular poetry. Miss Brooke does this of set purpose and to an incomparably greater extent than Walker". [Breathnach]Charlotte, whose education had been entirely supervised by her father, the novelist and poet, Henry Brooke, was brought up in Cavan where she became familiar with, sympathetic to, and enthusiastic about the Irish language and culture in way that was highly unusual for someone from the Anglo-Irish community, almost all of whom ignored the Gaelic culture that surrounded them. Coupling her enthusiasm, knowledge and appreciation with "a scholarly integrity that succeeding anthologists of modern Irish poetry have rarely equalled" she assembled in her Reliques of Irish Poetry the first ever printed anthology of native Irish poetry and created a work that was indeed a worthy debut for the sentiments of a whole people into the wider world.
Worthy too it was physically, for the skills of the printer and typographer were combined to produce a book of unusual elegance. Much care was lavished on its design and a new fount of type resembling manuscript writing was cut to print the Irish language sections of the book. Its large, complex letters in their needlessly antiquated form were, as Lynam put it, "no less than the book itself, a product of the romantic movement .... in spite of its largeness and quaintness, [it] is quite a good type, well planned for printing and pleasing to the eye". Its grandeur however made it too expensive for ordinary use and only four other books were printed in it.Vide: Prof R. A. Breathnach 'Two Eighteenth Century Irish Scholars: J. C. Walker and Charlotte Brooke' in Studia Hibernica, vol.5, 1965, p,88-97.
E. W. Lynam The Irish Character in Print 1571-1923, 1924.Arron Crossley Seymour Memoir .. of Charlotte Brooke, prefaced to the 1816 edition of the Reliques.
Brookiana, 1804.