Quarto. [2], ix, [2], 10-118pp. With a half-title and a list of subscribers. Handsomely bound in contemporary gilt-tooled red morocco, contrasting black calf lettering-piece, T.E.G. A trifle rubbed and marked. Marbled endpapers, recent bookplate of Liam Sims to FEP. Subscriber's copy; elaborate inked ownership inscription of Charles Stanley Esquire to recto of front blank fly-leaf.

A choice subscriber's copy in contemporary red morocco, of a scarce provincially published Romantic celebration - in rhyming couplets - of summer. Published under the pseudonym of 'Juvenis', suggesting that The Village Muse may be an effusion of youth, the work is gushingly dedicated to the Duke of Devonshire (the dedication also referring to Georgiana Cavendish, his socialite wife). Interestingly, the preface - which reference's Thomson's Seasons, also notes in passing the contemporary efforts to bring about the abolition of Slavery:

'But with trembling hand let her soon strike the weeping lyre, and sing a melancholy contrast! by painting the horrid regions where Man calls his fellow-create SLAVE - where Humanity skulks beneath the level of the brute - and wretched millions toil, without the remotest hopes of enjoying the fruits of their labour!'

Charles Stanley Esq., who has boldly inscribed this copy, is listed amongst the list of largely bourgeois subscriber's which also includes a 'Wilberforce, Mr. C.' of Hull and 'Wilberforce, Mrs.' of Seaton.