ARTHURIAN EPIC
BLACKMORE, Richard, Sir.
King Arthur. An Heroick Poem. In twelve Books … to which is annexed an Index, explaining the Names of Countrys, Citys, and Rivers, &c.
London, Awnsham and John Churchil, and Jacob Tonson, 1697.
Folio, pp. [2], xvii, [1], 343, [9], wanting the initial blank; some mild foxing to first and last few leaves, but a very good copy in contemporary mottled panelled calf, spine gilt in six compartments, red morocco label, edges speckled in brown and red; from the library of the Sandys family at Ombersley Court, with shelfmarks to front endpaper.
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King Arthur. An Heroick Poem. In twelve Books … to which is annexed an Index, explaining the Names of Countrys, Citys, and Rivers, &c.
First edition. Blackmore’s first Arthurian epic Prince Arthur (1695), modelled after the Aeneid and based on Geoffrey of Monmouth, proved a commercial if not critical success. Arthur was a transparent parallel to William III, and William presented Blackmore with a gold medal and a knighthood as a reward. The sequel, King Arthur, again used myth as a garb for contemporary politics; Blackmore’s long preface confesses his surprise at the critical opprobrium which Prince Arthur had excited, though goes on to outline that poem’s defects, and notes his current debt to Homer and Milton.
King Arthur met with somewhat less success than its predecessor, and Blackmore (1654–1729), a physician as well as a poet (as a medic he was praised by Locke), became the butt of lampoons by Dryden, Garth, Tom Brown, etc. A generation, and several more verse epics, later he did not escape Pope’s barbs either, and appears as ‘Neverending Blackmore’ in The Dunciad.
ESTC R18780; Wing B3077.
