2 volumes, 8vo (168 x 101 mm). Half-titles. (Spotting throughout.) Late 19th-century maroon morocco, top edge gilt, others uncut, stamp-signed by Schleuning & Adams (very light rubbing). Provenance: John Poole (1786-1872), English playwright (gift inscription); to Geradline Arden; Wilhelmus Myndverse (1849-1906), grandson of the founder of Seneca Falls, NY (bookplate); Ermina Carry Nicholson (ownership inscription); Walter Thomas Wallace (armorial bookplate); previously sold, American Art Galleries, 23 March 1920, lot 510.

FIRST EDITION. INSCRIBED BY ENGLISH DRAMATIST JOHN POOLE. The Beauties of English Poesy was published the year after Goldsmith's best-known work, The Vicar of Wakefield, and contains works by Alexander Pope, John Milton, Thomas Gray, and others. Each poem includes commentary by Goldsmith at the beginning, to "shew [the reader] what is beautiful, and inform them why it is so."