STEDMAN, Edmund Clarence

The Blameless Prince and Other Poems

Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co., 1869. First Edition. Octavo (17.5cm); brown cloth, stamped in gilt and blind, beveled edges; top edge gilt; 192pp. Upper portion of book comprehensively dampstained. Spine slightly cocked; gilt dulled; boards well rubbed and soiled; corners bumped, heel/crown of spine chipped. Minor foxing and soiling throughout interior; occasional marginalia. Very Good only.

American poet Edmund Clarence Stedman's The Blameless Prince, presented in this book in its entirety (with a selection of other miscellaneous poems), was reportedly intended as an inversion of the stainless personae of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. In this poem, our eponymous royal is held up as a paragon of virtue by his wife, the Queen of a nameless fantasy land; secretly, our "White Prince" has struck up a tryst with another woman. Dogged by guilt, he decides to break the whole thing off but a chance encounter with a falling tree solves all of his problems for him. As for the Queen, she uncovers the truth soon enough and dies of that curious Victorian affliction: Grief.

Price: $45.00

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