GALATEA SECUNDA. An odaic cantata, addressed to H.R.H. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, on his first arrival in the Colony of Victoria. The music composed by J. Summers, Mus. Bac. Oxon. Op. 9.
Single sheet printed on both sides, folded to form four cr. 4to pages; lightly browned, with a few small blemishes to paper, tiny splits at head and foot of the central fold; printed for private circulation, Melbourne, 1867[c.1873-1884]. First edition. *'Although the imprint date states that this piece was printed in Melbourne, in 1867, in reality it is a forgery which H. Buxton Forman had printed sometime between 1873 and 1884 which predates the first know Wise forgeries'. [Tober, item 53]. Barker & Collins called this pamphlet 'the prototype of the "creative forgery", perfect in every respect except the promotional campaign which would have been necessary to "sell" it commercially' [page 131]. They were unable to assign an exact printing date: the first recorded copy was in Forman's sale (Sotheby's, 12 November 1884), but some copies exist on paper watermarked 1873. In their dossier, they list three states of the pamphlet, from one setting of type, printed on four different paper stocks. This copy has the imprint in the third state and is on paper stock 'D' (off-white wove, no watermark). Famous for his epic poem Orion, published in 1843, Richard Henry Horne (1802-1884) lived in Australia for seventeen years. His cantata celebrates the visit to Victoria of Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, whose arrival in command of HMS Galatea was the first visit to Australia by a member of the British Royal Family. After Horne returned to England in 1869, he became friends with Harry Buxton Forman, to whom as his literary executor he left all his books and papers (referred to by Forman as the 'Hornucopia').\lang2057. Item #156900
Price: $750.00