Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord) Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, [one of only about 100 copies], Harriet Maltby's copy, lacking half-title, some light foxing, later green half morocco, gilt, rebacked preserving original spine, t.e.g., slightly rubbed, [Wise I pp.5-6], 8vo, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807.*** A superb association copy of an extraordinary rarity.This work followed a year after Byron's first privately printed book of poems, Fugitive Pieces, 1806, which he suppressed promptly after its release and of which, according to Wise, only four copies are known to survive, having already been distributed. The current work was printed in octavo format rather than the larger quarto size of Fugitive Pieces and includes 51 pieces, 12 of which appear for the first time, the remainder being reprinted from the suppressed quarto.This copy bears the ink ownership signature of Harriet Maltby and the date 1807 on the front free endpaper. Beneath this, in another hand, an ink inscription reads: "Given by Lord Byron to Lady Nichols - then Harriet Maltby." Harriet Maltby was one of the young ladies of Southwell in Nottinghamshire who were admired by Byron. Between 1803 and 1807 Byron often visited his mother who was staying at Southwell. He wrote the poem "To Marion" for Harriet, which opens "Marion! Why that pensive brow? What disgust in life hast thou? Change that discontented air; Frowns become not one so fair.", occasioned by a meeting with Harriet who was "cold, silent and reserved to him, by the advice of a lady with whom she was staying - quite foreign to her usual manner, which was gay, lively and full of flirtation." Despite her rejection it would appear that Byron was suitably smitten to write the verse and present this volume of poems to her. There is an imaginary portrait of "Marion" in Finden's Byron's Beauties of 1834. She later married Sir George Nicholls and died in 1869.This copy with 2 manuscript corrections to text, probably in Byron’s hand: p.115, penultimate line, the ‘e’ is inserted in the middle of the word ‘prudence’; p.126, verse 6, the first word ‘The’ in final line has a small ‘t’ corrected to a capital ‘T’; other copies with manuscript amendments are held at BL, Texas, Princeton and HarrowThis work rarely appears on the market, the last copy being the Leacroft family copy, with a similar association, in 2016 (Sotheby's $30,000), which had previously been bought at the Schiff sale in 1990.