GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von; Thomas HOLCROFT, translator.
Herman and Dorothea. A Poem, from the German …
London, Biggs and Cottle (Bristol), for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1801.
8vo, pp. xxii, [2], 211, [1], with an engraved frontispiece and nine other engraved plates after Franz Ludwig Catel; a couple of leaves coming loose, but a good copy in contemporary half calf and marbled boards; spine worn and chipped at head and foot.
First edition in English of Hermann und Dorothea (1798), translated into verse by the radical, novelist, and friend of Godwin, Thomas Holcroft. Goethe’s epic, set against the background of the French Revolutionary Wars, was immensely popular in its day; Goethe praised Holcroft’s rendition in a letter of 29 May 1801.
The poem was printed in Bristol by Cottle, favourite of the Romantics, and the advertisements at the end include those for the important second edition of Lyrical Ballads, as well as Cottle’s own Poems.
