Werner. A Tragedy.

BYRON, Lord George Gordon.

$375.00

Item Number: 130540

London: John Murray, 1823.

First edition, first state of Byron’s retelling of Kruitzner, or the German’s Tale in Harriet Lee’s Canterbury Tales without “the end” and the imprint on page 188. Octavo, bound in full polished calf with five raised gilt bands to the spine, morocco spine label lettered in gilt, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles. Lacking the publisher’s advertisements. In very good condition.

"Byron is to a far greater degree than the other romanticists the poet of humankind. He conveys with tremendous power the majesty and desolation of history, the vanity of pomp and pride, the transitoriness of fame. And he is the poet of contemporary society, keen to discern the false and the corrupt, courageous in denunciation yet with pity for the young and innocent… As a poet he mirrored brilliantly and without distortion an absorbingly interesting world" (Baugh, 1229).