Remaines concerning Britaine: their languages. Names. Surnames. Allusions. Anagrammes. Armories. Monies. Empreses. Apparell. Artillarie. Wise speeches. Proverbs. Poesies. Epitaphes. VVritten by VVilliam Camden Esquire, Clarenceux, King of Armes, surnamed the learned. The fift impression, with many rare antiquities never before imprinted. By the industry and care of Iohn Philipot, Somerset Herald Leather bound - 1636

London: Printed by Thomas Harper for John Waterson, 1636. Leather Bound. Very Good +. 5 1/2 x 7 1/2. 4to. Ffep + [8] + 420 + [4] + rfep. Collates as a-3H (in 4s). Complete with last blank. No portrait. A very few leaves with old ink spots, otherwise pages clean. Bound in full brown calf, which is cracked on surface of boards and worn at extremities. Rebacked to style. ESTCS122127. The year 1605 produced another volume of material gathered from Camden's and Robert Cotton's libraries, the Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britain. Camden did not put his name to it, identifying himself only by the final letter of each name, as M. N., but he dedicated it to Robert Cotton, suggesting his own ambivalence about a book that consisted of (as he wrote in the Epistle Dedicatorie) 'the rude rubble and out-cast rubbish' of a greater and more serious worke." If the Remaines is an ungainly, seemingly shapeless collection, it is also frequently witty and wise, and richly varied. Bringing together Camden's interest in literature and language, and social and cultural history, including both popular and high culture, the Remaines contains a wealth of material. Moreover, as a collection it reflects the unusual moment in the emergence of early modern Britain when the artefacts of the vernacular culture were coming to be valued in new ways. With the first historically organized anthology of medieval poetry, a historical and comparative study of the English language, collections of names and their meanings, of (in the words of one of the chapter headings) 'grave speeches, and wittie apothogemes,' and of epitaphs, it can be seen as a popular spin-off from its more expensive and serious historical mother lode, the Britannia. With two additional, enlarged editions in his own lifetime, seven throughout the seventeenth century, and several reprints thereafter, the Remaines remained a popular and useful work." Oxford DNB. Galland, Cryptology 33. Dekesel 17th C 17.