The Pleasures of Imagination, to which is prefaced a Critical Essay on the Poem

A new edition. 160pp. Steel engraved frontispiece, depicting the three Muses, with three further full page steel engravings, all take from the 1794 edition of the same work. In a near contemporary half leather binding, deep brown leather over marbled boards, gilt lettering on title label on spine. Coloured, possibly replacement, endpapers. (Boards worn and rubbed at edges, some mild chipping and scuffing to leather, patchily faded. Internally, some pages affected by old damp, which has browned some page edges; spotting and some rusting on prelims, especially frontispiece, else neat and tidy, and firmly bound. 12mo. A good, early example of this compelling, didactic poem, with an early critical, if not entirely objective, critical study. "It is a work that offers us entertainment, but not of an easy kind". Akenside took his inspiration for this work from the essays of Addison on the same topic, which had previously been published in the Spectator magazine.