CRABBE (GEORGE, 1754-1832, poet) AUTOGRAPH DRAFT OF AN UNPUBLISHED POEM entitled 'The Tavern', comprising 53 lines in seven stanzas, beginning 'All the comforts of Life in a Tavern are known / Tis his Home who possesses not one of his own...', with numerous autograph revisions, including the opening of a fourth stanza (the last numbered) written in his roughest hand and partly in note form, 2 pages, octavo, blind-stamped armorial seal, Crabbe's name written at the end possibly by his son and namesake, trace of former hinge, no date

'The Tavern' is not printed in The Complete Poetical Works of George Crabbe, edited by N. Dalrymple-Champneys and A. Pollard, 3 volumes, 1988. Included with it is a contemporary manuscript of another unpublished manuscript poem by Crabbe entitled 'Enigma', comprising twelve six-line stanzas, beginning 'Has Stella any vacant Time...', attributed in pencil to Crabbe and described as unpublished in a contemporary hand, with Crabbe's name written at the end in the same hand as that at the end of 'The Tavern' and with an impression of the same blind-stamped seal. It is not printed in The Complete Poetical Works.

£800