8vo. vi, 111, [1], 31pp, [1]. With a half-title and a terminal publisher's advertisement catalogue. Original publisher's blind-stamped navy cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. Lightly rubbed and bumped. Internally clean and crisp. Inked ownership inscriptions to half-title: 'Mrs. Edward Smedley / Jan. 31st. 1863' and 'Fanny H. Wallace / Sept: 7 1865'.

The first edition of poet and novelist Menella Bute Smedley's (1819/20-1877) idyllic long poem centred upon Isabella of Angoulême and her burgeoning romance with King John. Smedley, though popular in her time, is now chiefly remembered as the literary confidante of her cousin Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). In 1855, Smedley showed Dodgson's early comic work to another cousin, novelist Francis Edward Smedley (1818-1864), through whose efforts it was published in the Comic Times.

The former owner of the copy was likely the wife of Church of England clergyman Edward Arthur Smedley (1804-1890), second cousin and tutor to the aforementioned Francis.