TAYLOR, John. All The Workes of John Taylor the water-poet. Beeing Sixty and three in Number.
Collected into one Volume by the Author: With sundry new Additions, corrected, revised, and newly Imprinted. 1630 At London Printed by J.B. for James Boler; at the signe of the Marigold in Pauls Churchyard, 1630. First edition. Folio.Bound in c19th gilt-tooled burgundy crushed morocco by F.
Bedford / Francis Bedford 18 June 1799 - 8 June 1883 - known o be a skilful repairer of damaged leaves/. Marbled endpapers, with the armorial bookplate of Henry Dent-Brocklehurst. All edges gilt, turn-ins with fleuron roll. Extremities and joints a trifle rubbed. A number of pages have had repairs, with some loss to 3H2, a professional repair with slight loss of text to just a few characters of D5, SS1.The margins of PP3 and 3M4-5 are repaired (although paper chain lines are the same as the rest of the book).
There are infrequent ink marks and holes, without loss of sense, and some toning. Overall, a Very Good+ copy. Pagination is erratic (with a fondness for repeating page numbers. Lacking blank, [Frontis], blank [x,unlettered] 1-148, [2),1- 93,92,93 repeated 94-200, 225-343, [1blank],1-14,13 repeated,14-111,124,125,114-134,125,129,137-146 Numerous woodcut vignettes within text. The frontis -has vignettes showing a portrait of John Taylor and a boatman, engraved by Thomas Cockson. On " A Catalogue of all the severall Bookes contained in this Volume Taylor writes;
"These Bookes in number sixty three are here Bound in one Volume, scattred here and there
They stand not thus in order in the booke;
But any man may find them, that will looke"
This is the first collected edition of some the humorous and poetical works of John Taylor "The Water Poet" (1578-1653). Taylor seemed to publish works by subscription, sometimes raising money for printing by undertaking outrageous bets, such as sailing in a brown-paper boat. There are other works that Taylor published which he did not include in this collection. We have seen "gatherings" of these before, but this collected "Workes" is an uncommon book, especially complete and in this condition. He had no patrons, but a strong sense of his own worth as a poet, whilst working as a boatman, rowing passengers across the Thames. Taylor was active in his support of fellow Watermen in their dispute with theatre Players. New theatres were being built on the North bank of the Thames which drastically impacted upon the trade of watermen ferrying passengers across the river to visit the playhouses.
