Miscellaneous poems / by Mrs. Constantia Grierson, wife to Mr. Grierson.

Format:

• Book
• Manuscript

Author/Creator:

• Grierson, Constantia, 1704 or 1705-1733.

Contributor:

• Elias, A. C., former owner.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• English literature--Women authors--18th century.
• Printers--Ireland.
• Printers.
• English literature--Women authors.
• Ireland.

Genre:

• codices (bound manuscripts)
• poems
• Manuscripts, English.
• Manuscripts, European.

Penn Provenance:

• Owned by successive generations of the Grierson family until the early 20th century (Elias).
• Purchased in a mixed lot of volumes from an Irish country house by Belfast book dealier and antiquary John Gamble, 1984; sold with other volumes with Grierson provenance to a private collector (Elias).
• Gift of the Estate of Archibald Cameron Elias Jr., 2008.

Physical Description:

184 leaves : paper ; 192 x 154 mm bound to 200 x 160 mm

Place of Publication:

[Dublin], [approximately 1727-1733]

Biography/History:

Wife of Dublin printer George Grierson (King's Printer in Dublin from 1732), with whom she worked as a proofreader and editor of classical works.

Summary:

Preliminary fair copies of thirteen poems and three prose pieces, written on rectos, with occasional additions or revisions written on facing versos. The second group of writings (f. 79v-84v) is written upside down in relation to the front cover, from the back towards the front, so in this section of the manuscript the writing is on versos and rectos are blank. Two leaves have been torn out after folio 39; the modern foliation does not include them. Three of the poems (f. 2r, 15r, 30r) are earlier versions of ones published after Grierson's death by her friend Mary Barber in Poems on several occasions (London, 1734/35). Later notes about publication, identifications, and corrections have been added to some poems in blue pencil, probably by a member of the Grierson family.

Notes:

• Ms. codex.
• Title from title page (f. 1r).
• Foliation: Modern pencil foliation, [1-184 (35-78, 85-118, 128-164, 166-184 blank)], with foliation marked occasionally in the lengthy blank sections.
• Script: Written in cursive script by a single hand, most likely Constantia Grierson.
• Binding: Later 18th-century reversed calf with some cropping (Elias); blind-tooled; Constantia Grier. written in ink on spine; front cover detached, damage to head of spine.
• Origin: Probably written in Dublin between 1727 (date of death of the Grierson's first child, the subject of one of the poems) and 1733 (death of Constantia Grierson).

Publications about:

Elias, A.C, Jr. A manuscript book of Constantia Grierson's. In Swift Studies 2 (1987), 33-56.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1825.

OCLC:

981531813

Access Restriction:

Access to this item is subject to staff review.