THE WORKS IN VERSE AND PROSE OF WILLIAM SHENSTONE

Full tan calf with gilt decoration to the spine and a fillet to the boards; red and green spine labels. A little fading to the spine and the beginnings of wear to the head and tail of the outer hinges but a very good set. Marbled endpapers and green silk bookmarks; no suggestion of ownership. A frontispiece precedes Vols I & II; Map of the Leasowes, Halesowen (formerly Shropshire), Vol II; engraved decorations interspersed through the text of Vols I & II; Vol III a plainer production but the three books clearly bought and bound together by their first owner.

William Shenstone (1714-1763) was an English poet and a landscape gardener - a fact proclaimed in the map of Leasowes contained in Vol II. His work on the estate acquired some celebrity during his lifetime but left Shenstone severely out of pocket.