This first edition is surprisingly rare with just a handful of copies in both the UK and the USA recorded by OCLC. Second and third editions were published in 1821 and 1849.
An anthology of poems suitable for children selected by Elizabeth Man, wife of Richard Mant (1776-1848), bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore.
Elizabeth Mant (died 1848) assures parents in her preface that the present volume may be placed in the hand of any child, “assured that nothing will there be found, which can contaminate the purest mind, or reasonably offend the rigid” but continues by stating that she has avoided difficult subjects which might not necessarily seem appropriate for children, Cowper’s abolitionist poems The Negro’s Complaint and The Negro’s Triumph are, for example, included in the section “Pathetic Pieces” (p.208-10).
The anthology is divided into hymns, scriptural pieces, odes, elegies, epitaphs, inscriptions, sonnets and longer poems. The writers gathered here include Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Milton, Samuel Johnson, Cowper, Elizabeth Carter, Gray, Pope and Charlotte Smith.
Provenance: Victorian coloured ?booklabel on the front pastedown showing a child with a fawn in a woodland scene. Later in the collection of the book collector Jim Edwards.
