Title: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third By Lord Byron
Description: <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:15.3333px;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;">Demy 8vo. ff. [2], pp. 79 pages, [5]. Signatures: [A]² B-F⁸. Original wrappers, uncut; boxed. Includes publisher's advertisements on half title page verso. Ownership inscription of Catharine Huntingtown and “Ford” penciled on front pastedown. Watermark ‘O 1815’ on front endpaper.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:15.3333px;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:15.3333px;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;">First edition, first issue of Childe Harold, written by Lord Byron who had left England after being rejected in England, and in the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeat. The work touches on the futility of war, while praising patriotism and the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Throughout, nature is reflecting Byron’s inner turmoil. On the title page, the L of "Lettre" is below the u of "celui" and the first line of the second stanza ends with an exclamation mark; page 67 has the corrected quotation "A falcon towering in his pride of place". In some copies page 79 is misnumbered 76. See T.J. Wise, The Ashley Library. A Catalogue of Printed Books, Manuscripts and Autograph Letters. London, 1922, I, pp. 56-58. It contains the first appearance of Byron’s eulogistic lines and commentary on the forged epitaph of the daughter of Julius Alpinula, the leader of the Helvetian uprising, Julia Alpinula, who died soon after her attempt to save her father’s life. The story was in fact a humanist hoax based on a fabricated epitaph by Paulus Merula. Merula’s spurious text was evoked by Byron as a ‘human composition’ unsurpassed in its affecting sincerity. See A. Freeman, Julia Alpinula, pseudo-Heroine of Helvetia. How a Forged Renaissance Epitaph Fostered a National Myth. London, 2015, pp. 1-4.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_5654725" rel="ugc nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.</a></span></span></p>