MARVELL, Andrew (1621-1678). Miscellaneous Poems. London: for Robert Boulter, 1681.

First edition of the principal collection of Marvell's poems. In his own lifetime, Marvell was primarily known as a political satirist. Many of his poems circulated in manuscript only or were printed anonymously due to their politically sensitive content and sharp observations of government corruption. When he died rather suddenly of illness, many speculated he had been poisoned by his enemies.

This collection of his witty poetry, including the now iconic To His Coy Mistress, appeared after his death, finally under his own name. According to a prefatory note, they were arranged for publication from his papers by his wife, Mary Marvell—but there is no evidence that they were ever actually married. Mary Marvell was actually Mary Palmer, Marvell's landlady and housekeeper at the time of his death, who may have faked the marriage in order to help collect a debt from Marvell's estate. This copy has the usual gap in pagination necessitated by the suppression of three impolitic poems on Cromwell; the cancellanda are only known to survive in two copies. Grolier, Wither to Prior 536; Pforzheimer 671; Wing M-872.

Folio (302 x 190mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece, woodcut printer's device (browned, final leaf slightly soiled). 19th-century plum morocco gilt by Riviere (neatly rebacked preserving original spine panel). Provenance: some faint washed marginalia on recto of portrait leaf – Robert Lowry van Dyke, 1872-1941, American businessman and collector (bookplate)