Commonplace book.

Bookseller Notes

Adcock (b. 1864, d. 1930) was a busy author, prominent in his day - but better known for his journalistic activity than his work as a poet and novelist, in which he was classed among the 'Cockney School'.This is a well kept commonplace book with its extracts drawn largely from canonical sources - Shakespeare, Chaucer, classical, romantic, and metaphysical poets - along with some more contemporary selections, including Ella Wheeler Wilcox and a full transcription of Fitzgerald's 1889 revision of 'The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym'. As the latter indicates, though the commonplace book is dated 1886 at the front some entries within are dated later, giving roughly a three-year span for its production - still predating by a few years Adcock's emergence as an author of any sort. A handful of prose selections include a run of extracts from 'The Spectator', conveying a dual interest in poetry and journalism that carried through to his career.