[Wild, Robert:]

Iter Boreale. Together with some other select poems, not heretofore printed.

      London: Printed for L.F. 1661. First edition thus. 8vo., pp. 63 [i]. Margins cut close (but never affecting text), lightly toned throughout. Early 20th-century mid-brown calf, spine vertically gilt-lettered, just very lightly rubbed and scratched. Ownership inscription of ‘Chaundy’ dated 29-04-1932 to rear pastedown. The second edition of satirical poet and nonconformist minister Robert Wild’s ‘Iter Boreale’, and the first edition of the other included poems (some 2/3rds of the volume). The Iter Boreale was very popular, being first published on 23rd April, 1660, and seeing several issues and at least two continuations by other hands in the same year. This edition appeared the next year, and there were a total of eight by 1674, with this one among the rarest, ESTC showing holdings for only eight copies (four US, four UK). Pepys read the Iter Boreale, and ‘like[d] it pretty well but not so as it was cried up’ (quot. in ODNB). Most of the additional poems in this edition are elegies for the Earl of Essex and several puritan ministers, although also included are ‘The Norfolk and Wisbech Cock-Fight’ and a poem ‘Upon some bottles of Sack and Claret’. ESTC R35248. Wing W2134.