The Farmer’s Boy.

BLOOMFIELD, Robert. [Herman Melville].

$8,800.00

Item Number: 144051

London: Sampson, Low, Son & Co, 1858.

Later printing of the poem that made Robert Bloomfield’s reputation. Octavo, original publisher’s cloth elaborately stamped in gilt, all edges gilt, illustrated with thirty engravings from drawings by Birket Foster, Harrison, Weir, and G.E. Hicks. Presentation copy, inscribed on the verso of the front free endpaper, “Fanny Melville from Herman Xmas 1876.” Presentation inscription likely in the hand of Melville’s wife. Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819, to Allan Melvill (1782–1832)[3] and Maria (Gansevoort) Melvill (1791–1872). Herman was the third of eight children in a family of Scottish and Dutch descent. His siblings, who played important roles in his career as well as in his emotional life, were Gansevoort (1815–1846); Helen Maria (1817–1888); Augusta (1821–1876); Allan (1823–1872); Catherine (1825–1905); Frances Priscilla (1827–1885); and Thomas (1830–1884), who eventually became a governor of Sailors’ Snug Harbor. Part of a well-established and colorful Boston family, Allan Melvill spent much time out of New York and in Europe as a commission merchant and an importer of French dry goods. Allan declared bankruptcy in 1830 and died two years later, leaving Maria with eight children under the age of 17 and a pile of debt from loans and Allan’s unsuccessful businesses. Soon afterward, Maria added an “e” to their surname—perhaps to hide from collection agencies, although scholars are not sure exactly why. In fine condition. From the library of American bookseller and renowned Melville collector William S. Reese with his bookplate to the pastedown.

English labouring-class poet Robert Bloomfield was born into a poor family in the village of Honington, Suffolk. The poem that made his reputation, The Farmer's Boy, was composed in a garret in Bell Alley, Coleman Street. The manuscript was declined by several publishers and was eventually shown by his brother George to Capel Lofft, a radical Suffolk squire of literary tastes, who arranged for its publication with woodcuts by Thomas Bewick in 1800. The success of The Farmer's Boy was remarkable, over 25,000 copies being sold in the next two years. It was also reprinted in several American editions, appeared in German translation in Leipzig, in French as Le Valet du Fermier in Paris, and in Italian translation in Milan. The poem was particularly admired by the Suffolk-born painter John Constable, who used couplets from it as tags for two of his paintings: "A Ploughing Scene" (shown at the Royal Academy in 1814) and "A Harvest Field, Reapers, Gleaners" (shown at the British Institution in 1817), which he marked as derived from "Bloomfield's poem."