An Elegy written in a Country Churchyard [in] The London Magazine, March 1751

The Elegy (including the Epitaph) appears on pp.134-135. By common consent Gray's greatest poem, the Elegy was completed in 1750 when the poet was living near the church St. Giles, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. With help from Walpole, the poem was first printed by Dodsley in February 1751 in an unsuccessful attempt to forestall Owen's pirate version pubished a few days before. The present issue appeared a few weeks later. The text here is the longer version: 33 stanzas (inc. Epitaph) rather than the 32 stanzas of the standard modern poem. There are numerous textual variations between eighteenth and twentieth-century versions; the most obvious being the omission in the modern text of the thirtieth (and final) stanza beginning 'There scattered oft, the earliest of the year', but there are several others. Here the tenth stanza begins 'Forgive, ye proud! The involuntary fault/If memory to these no trophies raise' which becomes 'Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault/If mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise'. This same issue also includes (as frontispiece) a fine engraved plate 'A Prospect of Richmond Hill', an engraved folding map of Staffordshire and two musical scores. EARLY PRINTINGS ARE VERY SCARCE, ESPECIALLY IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS AS HERE.