Poems: The Farmer's Boy and Other Poems

THE

F A R M E R' S B O Y

A Rural Poem

By ROBERT BLOOMFIELD

THE EIGHTH EDITION

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LONDON:

PRINTED FOR VERNOR AND HOOD POULTRY,

AND LOGMAN, HURST, REES AND ORME.

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1805

DESCRIPTION

(xxvii) + 119 + various other poems + (ii)

Book measures 165mm x 110mm approximately.

A simple and fitting binding in contemporary full brown calf. Spine with bands with gilt motif to each compartment and black title label. Marbled end-papers and paste-downs. Engraving to verso of title page and many further engravings throughout.

CONDITION

The binding is holding quite firm. A one inch crack to the upper front hinge. Some small losses to top of spine. A few nicks and scuffs to boards and some mild bumping to board corners. Internally the pages are generally clean throughout, with just a few random spots and a little light browning to end-papers.

Overall, a lovely tight little volume in good condition.

INTERESTING

Robert Bloomfield (1766 to 1823) was an English labouring-class poet. He was born into a poor family in the village of Honington, Suffolk. His father was a tailor, who died of smallpox when his son was a year old. It was from his mother Elizabeth, who kept the village school, that he received the rudiments of education. Bloomfield was apprenticed at the age of eleven to his mother's brother-in-law, and worked on a farm that was part of the estate of the Duke of Grafton, his future patron.

The poem that made his reputation was The Farmer's Boy and later Rural Tales. Unfortunately, his publishers, failed, and in 1812 Bloomfield had to move from London into a cottage rented to him by a friend in the village of Shefford. There one of his daughters died in 1814 and his wife became insane. To support himself, he tried to carry on a business as a bookseller but it failed. With failing eyesight and his own reason threatened by depression, he died in great poverty on 19 August 1823.