Rotgans, Lucas - Poëzy, van verscheide mengelstoffen. Geillustreerde eerste druk mét de boerekermis. - 1715

Extensive first edition of the posthumous collected works of Lucas Rotgans (1654–1710), an important Dutch poet and playwright from the period around 1700.

In this nearly 700-page volume, almost everything Rotgans wrote in poetry and dramatic verse is collected, with the exception of his grand epic Wilhelm de Derde (1698–1700). The volume includes, among other things, the tragedies Scilla and Eneas and Turnus, numerous occasional poems, the court poems Gezang op Goudestein and Stichts landtgezang op Heemstede and the well-known Boerekermis, with the two accompanying engravings.

The book opens with 45 illustrated Zedelessen from the old verdichtzelen drawn: mythological stories after Ovid to which Rotgans repeatedly tied a moral lesson. These were originally meant to appear separately, but Rotgans died unexpectedly in 1710 of the pox.

The collection was issued posthumously by François Halma, who personally knew Rotgans. Halma was a bookseller, printer and himself a poet, and was appointed in Leeuwarden as landschapsdrukker (provincial printer) of Friesland. The edition thus forms an important early collection of Rotgans' literary estate.

Condition: bound in contemporary parchment. The parchment binding is clearly battered and shows considerable signs of use and age, with damage and wear, especially to the spine. Interior in good condition, with light wear. Illustrations in good condition. See the photos for a good impression of the state. Despite the damaged binding, this is an attractive and substantively important first edition from 1715.

Dutch literature - drama - illustrated books - early eighteenth-century Dutch printing.