12mo. In five volumes. [2], ii, 354; [4], 353, [1]; [4], 353, [3]; [2], ii, 356; [2], 354pp, [4]. Extra-illustrated with 80 engraved portraits. Finely bound in contemporary tree-calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-pieces, spines richly gilt. Extremities a trifle rubbed, some slight splitting to joints. Later booksellers catalogue description pasted to Vol. I FEP, inked annotation to recto of FFEP of same, small stain to lower corner of leaf H1, Vol. II, some loss to margins of B10, Vol. II, H5, Vol. IV, F1 and M5, Vol. V, occasional offsetting, else a crisp set.

The first edition, extensively-extra illustrated, of The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland; although predominantly compiled by Robert Shiels (d. 1753), with additions and revisions by actor and playwright Theophilus Cibber (1703- 1758), it is generally known as 'Cibbet's Poets'. An amanuenses of Samuel Johnson on his Dictionary, Sheils was, on completion of that work in 1752, engaged by publisher Ralph Griffiths to compile the present work; the claim to authorship of which would be hotly contested between him and Cibber, who had been commissioned as editor. Cibber's name alone appears on the title page of the first volume, the later volumes generously allow 'and other hands'. Sheil, justifiably piqued, found support in Johnson who attributed the whole credit of the work to him, despite the fact that the work was largely based on Langbaine and Jacobs, with the aid of Coxeter's notes, and does not contain much original material.

The contemporary extra-illustrations in this copy are predominantly engraved portraits of the poets mentioned in the text, including Chaucer, Milton, and Dryden.