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First edition: the first major book of poetry by a professional actor. Included is a 25-page poem, ‘The Cat’. ‘... Oh gentle TABBY! How much I do admire / Thy graceful form, thy smooth and cleanly skin, / By rough toungue cleans’d, and ear by foot refresh’d.’

‘We have read this volume of poems with much pleasure. The descriptive parts are very excellent; the compositions in general possess originality, and frequently charm by tenderness and simplicity. Mr. Harley’s chief error seems to be prolixity, and the pursuing of a thought too far...’ (Critical Review).

Most of the book is taken up by only six poems, and printed in small type. The Monthly Review acidly remarked: ‘The subscribers to this volume will certainly not complain of their bargain as far as quantity is concerned, for never have we seen new poetry dealt our in fuller measure. Whatever be the author’s subject, sentiment, description, or morality, he never fails of giving enough. Here is a poem on Night that would almost require a night’s reading to get through it; and a Legacy of Love to a Child, as long as was ever bequeathed by a lawyer’s pen in a real last will and testament’.

Harley found success as an actor at Covent Garden from the year 1789 and there played several major roles, including Richard III, Iago, Shylock, Lear, and Jacques. This poetic collection dates from his last year in London, thereafter he performed with considerable success in Bath, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Dublin and elsewhere. Jackson, p. 211.

First edition. A rare little collection for animal-lovers, with over 60 anecdotes illustrating the characteristics of dogs (mainly) and cats, with titles such as ‘The faithful poodle’, ‘Siberian sledge-dogs’, ‘The surgeon and the dog’, ‘Strange punishment by a poodle’, ‘Remarkable rescue by a dog’, ‘The hunting dog’, ‘The life and times of a pomeranian’. For cat lovers, there are stories such as ‘The amusing education of a cat’ (from Campe’s Kinderbibliothek) and ‘The prisoner and the cat’. Worldcat locates copies at College of William & Mary (VA) and Staatsbibliothek only.

One of 330 numbered copies. An eccentric poem about the nine lives of a cat, written and illustrated by the radical liberal wood-engraver and poet William James Linton, an Englishman who later emigrated to the United States. Linton invents a nostalgic biography of the fictional young author, "a young lady of colour", whose humbled origins as the uneducated daughter of field-hands are left behind as her literary genius emerges, before her untimely and premature death. COPAC lists just one copy of this edition, at V&A Libraries. 35 numbered copies printed on Japanese vellum and an unlimited edition were also published by Lawrence and Bullen in the same year; COPAC records an edition printed at the Appledore U.S. Press, Hamden, Connecticut, 188-? (the press owned and run by Linton).