BAILEY, PHILIP JAMES ), English poet, author of Festus, was born at Nottingham and had a legal educa tion though he never practised seriously. He is a man of one book, the voluminous and incoherent poem of Festus, which appeared anonymously in 1839, when the author was only 23. He wrote other volumes, none of which had any great success. Festus was reissued several times, and Bailey incorporated in it fragments from his other works, so that the original length of 20,000 lines was almost doubled in the end. The story is based on the Faust legend, treated in the most diffuse and rambling way. It had an enormous vogue in its day, and undoubtedly contains some fine passages.
loth anniversary edition of Festus was pub lished in 1893. Other volumes by Bailey are: The Angel World (185o), The Mystic (1855), The Age (x858) and The Universal Hymn (1867). See J. Ward, Philip James Bailey, author of Festus, Personal Recollec tions (19o5)•