GARÇÃO, Pedro Antonio Correa.

Obras poeticas

      Lisbon, Regia Officina Typografica, 1778. - Woodcut headpieces. (6 ll.), 414 pp., (1 l. errata). 8°, later quarter morocco over marbled boards (spine worn and defective at head), flat spine gilt in romantic style, gilt letter, green endleaves (front free endleaf lacking). Scattered marginalia in pencil. Oval Porto booksellers' label in upper outer corner of front pastedown endleaf. FIRST EDITION. The author, "one of the first members and most prominent poets of the @Arcadia, did good service in his determined efforts to deliver his country's literature from foreign imitations and the false affectation of the time, and to revert to the classics, Greek, Roman, and Portuguese" (Bell p. 271). Correa Garção (1724-1772), a native of Lisbon, set out in 1757 with Antonio Diniz da Cruz, Theotonio Gomes de Carvalho and Manuel Nicolau Esteves Negrão to reform the Parnaso Portuguez by creating the Arcadia Ulyssiponense, which endured until 1774. Correa Garção adopted the name Corydon Erymantheo. He continued to write and to fulfill his duties as a minor functionary in the Meza do Consulado Geral da Entrada e Sahida in the Casa da India, until suddenly in April 1771 he was imprisoned, apparently for somehow offending the Marques de Pombal. (The exact charges brought against him remain unknown.) Correa Garção's wife finally obtained his release on 10 November 1772, but he died the same afternoon, physically exhausted by his prison ordeal. The "insigne restaurador da poesia portugueza" (as Innocêncio calls him) was buried in an unmarked grave in the convicts' cemetery. Aside from several brief odes published in Francisco José Freire's @Sanctos patronos contra as tempestades de raios, Lisbon 1767, no works by Correa Garção were published during his lifetime. The first and only collection of his works is the @Obras poeticas, published six years after his death and in several later editions (Lisbon 1793, Rio de Janeiro 1812, Lisbon 1825, and others). Innocêncio VI, 386-91. Pinto de Mattos (1970) p. 215. Not in Palha, which lists an 1888 edition. Not in Welsh or @Greenlee Catalogue. Monteverde 1827. Avila-Perez 1979. Not in Azevedo-Samodães, which lists 1793 and 1825 editions. Not in Ameal. Bell, @Portuguese Literature pp. 271-2. NUC: CLU, MB. [Attributes: First Edition; Hard Cover]