This copy of the “fourth” London edition of 1728 includes a dedication in Voltaire’s hand that is dated 25 April 1728. In the dedication, Voltaire presents the edition to Queen Caroline, adding that he waited until the fourth edition was ready to send a copy of the work to the Queen as it was ‘plus correcte et plus épurée’. Despite his assertions in this dedication, Voltaire had written ten days earlier to present the Queen with a first edition copy of the work.

Voltaire’s dedication is, unusually, bound at the back of the volume and is upside down.

The letter critiques the recipient’s poetry before going on to mention a series of poets: Voltaire; Jacques Pradon; Jean Racine; William Shakespeare; John Milton; Samuel Johnson; Edmund Waller; and John Dryden.