27pp, [1]. With a half-title.

[Bound with:] DAVIDSON, John. Testaments. No. II. The testament of a man forbid. London. Grant Richards, 1901. First edition. 29pp, [1]. With a half-title.

[And:] DAVIDSON, John. Testaments. No. III. The testament of an empire-builder. London. Grant Richards, 1902. First edition. 81pp, [1]. With a half-title and an initial leaf of publisher's advertisements.

Quarto. Contemporary black half-morocco, cloth boards, gilt. Lightly rubbed and marked. Internally immaculate.

The first three volumes of Scottish poet John Davidson's (1857-1909) Testament series in which he expounds in verse a unique philosophy at once materialistic and aristocratic. In the prefatory remarks to the first book, he states: 'The Testament of a Vivisector, the first of a series of poems which I purpose publishing at intervals in this form, will hardly recommend itself to Vivisector or Anti-Vivisector; and the new statement of Materialism which it contains is likely to offend both the religious and the irreligious mind. This poem, therefore, and its successors, my 'Testaments', are addressed to those who are willing to place all ideas in the crucible, and who are not afraid to fathom what is subconscious in themselves and others'.