Page:Mary Lamb (Gilchrist 1883).djvu/185

Rh First Book of Poetry and The Poetical Class Book, issued from the same Juvenile Library in 1810. These went through many editions, but ultimately dropped quite out of sight, as the original work had already done. Writing to Bernard Barton in 1827 Lamb says: "One likes to have one copy of everything one does. I neglected to keep one of Poetry for Children, the joint production of Mary and me, and it is not to be had for love or money." Fifty years later such specimens of these poems as could be gathered from the Mylius collections and from Lamb's own works, were republished by Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt and also by Richard Herne Shepherd; when, at last in 1877, there came to hand from Australia a copy of the original edition: it had been purchased at a sale of books and furniture at Plymouth in 1866 and thence carried to Adelaide. It was reprinted entire by Mr. Shepherd (Chatto and Windus, 1878), with a preface from which the foregoing details have been gathered. A New England publisher early descried the worth of the Poetry for Children; for it was reprinted in Boston—eighty-one pieces, at least, out of the eighty-four—in 1812. A copy of this American edition also has recently come to light.

This was Mary's last literary undertaking in book form; but there is reason to think she wrote occasional articles for periodicals for some years longer. One such, at any rate, on Needle-work, written in 1814, is mentioned by Crabb Robinson, of which more hereafter.