Songs before Sunrise. A New Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1875. Pp vii, 287. Dublin prize binding by Hodges Foster & Co., Dublin. Bound in full dark green morocco, crest of Trinity College, Dublin embossed in gilt to centre of upper & lower boards, with decorative tooling in blind, inner dentelles ruled in gilt with marbled endpapers; all edges in gilt a fine bright copy.

First published in 1871, this New Edition is scarce & is possibly a reissue in first edition sheets.

Included are the first appearance of a collection of poems that marked a significant change in tone for Swinburne, from personal confession to political awareness and what DNB terms “a humanist positivism,” and contain in DNB’s opinion “at least two of Swinburne’s best poems, ‘Hertha’ and ‘Before a Crucifix,’ as well as the rhetorically impressive ‘Hymn of Man.'”