Quarto. [10] leaves. Illustrated throughout. Original publisher's limp blind-stamped red cloth, lettered in gilt. Extremities a trifle rubbed and marked. Later bookplate to FEP, light damp-staining to head of all leaves at gutter, else clean and crisp.

The first edition of Poet Laureate Robert Southey's (1774-1843) verse adaptation of the German folk tale of the cruel Archbishop Hatto, whose hoarding of grain from the local populace led to his being devoured by an ungodly swarm of mice as they besieged his island home. The rather gruesome engravings that accompany Southey's couplets where illustrated by Violetta Harriot Darwin (1826-1880), great-niece of naturalist Charles Darwin.