Chaucer (Geoffrey) The Workes...,

Chaucer (Geoffrey) The Workes..., [edited by William Thynne], 2 parts in 1 vol., fourth edition, black letter, double column, 53 lines, division title The Romance of the Rose within elaborate woodcut border, 2 large woodcuts in the Knyghtes Tale and the Squiers Tale, woodcut initials throughout, lacks A1 title (supplied in facsimile), Oo6, Qqq 1 & Qqq 6 (blank), a few headlines shaved, lower half of most edges nibbled, some edges slightly stained, browned, near contemporary manuscript epigram: "An Epigraphe uppon the death of the right excellent poet Syr Geffrey Chaucer, made by Timothe Kendall... at Haslington Hall in Chesshire 1578 disce {vivere pari mori} TK." on verso of X4, also signed by "Dorothe Egerton" (wife of Sir Thomas Vernon of Haslington Hall) and Anne Vernon on verso of X5, also inscribed "Francis Wolfresston her bouk given her by her motherilaw mary wolfreston" & other signatures by members of the Wolfrestan family dated 1717 & 1718, other ink inscriptions and marks, some ink underlining in text, 19th century ink note mounted on front pastedown, 18th century reversed panelled calf, ink signature of S. Wolferstan lettered direct on upper cover, corners repaired, sympathetically rebacked in modern reversed calf, [STC 5074, variant; Pforzheimer 175], folio, "Imprynted at London by Robart Toye, dwelling in paules churche yarde at the sygne of the Bell", [1550?].

***Timothy Kendall (fl. 1577), verse-writer, son of William Kendall of North Aston, Oxfordshire. "He was educated at Eton, and in 1572 was a member of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Leaving the university without a degree, he became a student at Staple Inn. In 1577 he published 'Flowers of Epigrammes, out of sundrie the most singular authours selected, as well auncient as late writers.' Few of the translated epigrams have any merit, and some are grotesquely bad. Meres, in 'Palladis Tamia,' 1598, nujmbers Kendall among the English epigrammatists, along with Heywood, Drant, Bastard, and Davies." - DNB.Dorothy Vernon according to legend and a nineteenth century work, Tales of the English & Scottish Peasantry, by Allan Cunningham, 1822, eloped with John Manners in 1563..