ABSTRACT
In the first edition of Poems Descriptive there were several poems and lines offensive to Clare’s patrons. This section charts some of the fluctuations of opinion, and Clare’s obduracy (see Introduction, pp. 3–4). But the bibliographica Ifacts are-eloquent: ‘The Country Girl’ was omitted from the second edition, ‘My Mary’ and ‘Dolly’s Mistake’ from the third. The fourth edition lost, in addition to these poems, ‘Friend Lubin’, the offending line from ‘Dawnings of Genius’ and part of ‘Helpstone’.
