Special Collections
Book of the Month, August 2007
Odes
Thomas Gray
London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1757
[S.L.] I [Gray – 1757]
This first edition of Gray’s Odes has twofold significance: as the first edition of two odes (“Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake” and “Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!”) of a poet who had already established his fame through his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, and as the first work printed at Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill Press. Renowned in its own time, the Strawberry Hill Press remains the most famous eighteenth-century private press and, indeed, almost the only English private press of any importance in the eighteenth century. Horace Walpole established it in an outbuilding of his house at Twickenham for his own pleasure and convenience, where for 32 years it produced a good number of works written by Walpole himself, guides to the contents of Strawberry Hill, and important works by other authors.
Walpole was pleased to secure Gray’s Odes for his new Press, writing in exultation to the architect and arts connoisseur John Chute: “I found him [Gray] in town last week: he had brought his two Odes to be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley’s hands, and they are to be the first-fruits of my press”. Walpole and Gray had been close friends from the time of their schooldays in Eton together. Gray had accompanied Walpole on the grand tour, and Walpole had been responsible for the publication of some of Gray’s previous work. The Odes came out in 2,000 copies on 8th August, 1757. Gray was disappointed with the outcome, as although some readers were enthusiastic, others had difficulty with historical references and literary allusions which were unfamiliar to them.
The copy shown is from the Sterling Library, which features first and fine editions of English literature. On the front and back covers are the arms of Baron George John Warren, fifth Baron Vernon (1803-1866), who left his mark as an editor of Dante.
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