This next item comes from a far more serious poet, the highly respected wordsmith of his era Thomas Campbell. This one was destined to become highly popular with American readers, though Campbell was an English poet: Gertrude of Wyoming. A Pennsylvania Tale, published in 1809. This refers to the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, not the state, though it is believed the popularity of this poem played an instrumental role in the state of Wyoming being named after this area of Pennsylvania. The poem is about the Wyoming Massacre, a one-sided battle during the American Revolution when British loyalists and their Indian supporters slaughtered over 200 people defending what was then frontier settlements in the valley. Campbell's sympathies were clearly on the side of the Americans. Item 41. £150 (US $238)
Next we return to the previously mentioned popular genre of Gothic horror poetry. Item 212 is the anonymously written Tales of Terror, published in 1801. Some attributed this work to Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of Tales of Wonder, but that appears more to have been the result of the publisher seeking to create that illusion, as Lewis was quite popular at the time. It is not clear whether the author's intent was more satirical or serious. Beyond the poems, it is the illustrations that are notable, being grotesque images hard to take seriously. £1,500 (US $2,380).
Item 216 is the youthful work of Connop Thirlwall, Primitiae; Or, Essays and Poems on various subjects, Religious, Moral and Entertaining. Thirlwall, just 11 year old at the time, went on to be the Bishop of St. David's in Wales and an author of scholarly books. His father, also a minister, published this book by his young son, who we are told began writing verse at the age of 7. Perhaps this was a case of a father's pride overcoming a realistic evaluation of his son's work, as Thirlwall later became embarrassed by this book and is said to have acquired copies of it for the purpose of destroying them. This copy escaped his wrath. £125 (US $198).
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