12mo. xi, [1], 178pp. Original publisher's blind-stamped blue cloth, lettered in gilt to upper board. A trifle rubbed. Endpapers stained, blind-stamps of the Werneth Mechanics Institute, Oldham, to title page, and leaves B2, C2, and C3. Ink inscription to recto of FFEP: 'Presented to the / Werneth Mechanic's / Institution / by / Mr. Wallace Rennie / Decr. 5th 1865'.

The first edition of a collection of verse by James Taylor 'The Royton Poet', posthumously published by private subscription for the benefit of his widow. Taylor received no formal education, his parents fearing that were he literate he would become an irreligious radical. He evidently defied them. A journeyman cotton-weaver, by the 1820s Taylor was publishing for periodicals under the pseudonym 'poor poet'.

OCLC and COPC together record copies at five locations (BL, California, Manchester, Stamford, and Yale).