8vo. [4], 154, 2pp. With a leaf of errata and terminal catalogue of publisher's advertisements. Contemporary gilt-tooled calf, contrasting brown morocco lettering-piece. Very lightly rubbed, joints starting. Marbled endpapers. Bookplate of Oliver Brett to FEP. Edges of endpapers discoloured, occasional scattered spotting.

The first edition, attractively bound, of Tennyson's 1830 collection of Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. Found among the 56 lyrics within are the noted early poems 'Recollections of the Arabian Nights' and 'Claribel', and the lyrical narrative 'Mariana', a notable precursor to 'The Lady of Shalott'. The early compilation received favourable reviews in the Tatler, the Westminster, and the Englishman's Magazine, noting the use of experimental and irregular metre, and Tennyson's characteristic focus on the musical and sonically provocative power of words, in this case, favoured over their literal meanings.

Early editions are noted to carry two sporadic printing errors - in some copies, Page 91 is misnumbered 19, and the word carcanet, on page 72, is misspelt coronet. This edition, however, features neither misprint; notorious forger Thomas J. Wise, in his Bibliography of Tennyson (1908), correctly identified that 'these errors were detected, and corrected, at different periods during the printing of the book.'