Poems on Several Occasions. By Ann Yearsley, A Milkwoman of Bristol. Bound with: Poems on Various Subjects, by Ann Yearsley, a Milkwoman of Clifton, Near Bristol, Being Her Second Work. With: engraving by Isaac Taylor, Jr., circa 1785, of “Miss More Presenting the Bristol Milkwoman to Mrs. Montague”

London: T. Cadell, in the Strand; Printed for the Author, 1787. Scarce first editions of the first two collections of poetry by Ann Yearsley (1753-1806), whose fraught rise to fame remains a cautionary tale for starving artists, accompanied by a contemporary engraving of Yearsley and her patrons. The discovery and promotion of the working-class poet Yearsley by prominent Bluestockings Hannah More and Elizabeth Montagu was one of the great literary stories of the 1780s; the very public break between Yearsley and her benefactors was another. Yearsley was a Bristol milkwoman with no formal education, married to a yeoman farmer: the couple had six children while Yearsley was still in her twenties. The struggling young family was rescued from penury by a local benefactor who brought Yearsley’s verses to the attention of Hannah More. More was impressed by the untutored poet’s “wild wood notes:” “Her ear is perfect; there is sometimes great felicity in the structure of her blank verse, and she often varies the pause with a happiness which looks like skill.” More appealed to her friend Elizabeth Montagu: “as it has pleased God to give [Yearsley] these talents, may they not be made an instrument to mend her situation, if we publish a small volume of her Poems by subscription?” The result was Yearsley’s first collection, Poems, on Several Occasions (1785), whose publication by Thomas Cadell was underwritten by scores of More and Montagu’s powerful literary friends: the list of subscribers runs to fifteen pages. Yearsley’s volume was well-received, dramatizing the struggle of a poet working in isolation and poverty: “Oft as I trod my native wilds alone, / Strong gusts of thought wou’d rise, but rise to die; / The portals of the swelling soul, ne’er op’d / By liberal converse, rude ideas strove / Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died. / Thus rust the Mind’s best powers.” The success of Yearsley’s poems led to a break with her benefactors. In a high-handed (if probably well-intentioned) move, More and Montagu assumed control over Yearsley’s finances, pressuring her to invest her profits in a trust that would provide her family with a modest income each year, and resisting Yearsley’s attempts to manage her newfound earnings directly. The fragile alliance between the Bristol milkwoman and the London Bluestockings collapsed in mistrust and bitter accusations of ingratitude and dishonesty. Yearsley addresses the controversy in her second collection, the self-published Poems, on Various Subjects (1787), which opens with a defense of her position, and reprints the deed of trust at the heart of the dispute. In later years, Yearsley would become a prominent campaigner against the Bristol slave trade, and would eventually establish her own circulating library. The accompanying engraving by Isaac Taylor depicts the fateful moment when Hannah More introduces Ann Yearsley to Elizabeth Montagu, who remains seated at her library desk, surrounded by all the signifiers of wealth and education denied to Yearsley. Roundel vignettes at each corner showcase new fashions in bonnets and hats, suggesting that the illustration was created for a ladies’ periodical. A scarce group of materials documenting a fascinating episode in English literary history. Quarto, measuring 10 x 7.5 inches: xxx, 127 [1]; xl, 168; [4], 12; [4], 16. Contemporary half-calf, speckled tan paper boards, spine ruled in gilt, black morocco spine label lettered in gilt, edges stained yellow. Preliminaries to 1785 Yearsley title include Hannah More’s letter to Elizabeth Montagu and list of subscribers; preliminaries to 1787 Yearsley title include Yearsley’s dedication to the Earl of Bristol, More’s letter to Montagu, Yearsley’s letter defending herself against More’s accusations, a copy of the disputed deed of trust, Yearsley’s rejected proposal on behalf of her children, and list of subscribers. Two uncredited works bound after Yearsley titles: [William Woty], The Graces: A Poetical Epistle from a Gentleman to his Son (London: Printed for the Author, 1774) and [William Combe], A Letter to Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire (London: Fielding and Walker, 1777). Light shelfwear, small chip to spine label, corners bumped. Engraving by Isaac Taylor, Jr., measuring 4.25 x 5 inches, mounted to old scrapbook page, matted to 8.5 x 9 inches. (Inventory #: 1004133)