Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$1248.84 + shipping
Description: First Essex House Press edition, number 95 of 140 copies only printed on vellum and hand-illuminated. This is number eleven in the press's "Great Poems of the Language" series. The Essex House Press was founded by Charles Robert Ashbee and Laurence Hodson following the closure of William Morris's Kelmscott Press in 1897 and "came from the heart of the arts and crafts movement" (Franklin, p. 64). Ashbee bought the Kelmscott Press's Albion printing presses after Morris's death and employed one of the Kelmscott compositors, Thomas Binning. In 1902, "a bindery was established in the Guild, under the direction of Annie Power, who had been a student of Douglas Cockerell" (Crawford, p. 400). The illuminated letters for this work were provided by Florence Kingsford Cockerell (1871-1949), one of the leading book illuminators of the English arts and crafts movement. Kingsford Cockerell studied calligraphy under Edward Johnston and predominantly worked for the Ashendene Press. Franklin, p. 235; Ransom, Essex House Press 48. Octavo. Original vellum, spine lettered in gilt, rose and "Soul is Form" blind-stamped to front cover. Printed in Caslon type in red and black. Hand-coloured frontispiece and final tailpiece by Reginald Savage, initials by hand in red, blue, green, and gilt. Slight soiling to vellum, contents clean; a near-fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$2241.51 + shipping
Description: First Essex House Press edition, number 119 of 150 copies only, printed on vellum and hand illuminated. Goldsmith's poem, first published in 1770, is a pastoral elegy and political polemic which depicts an idealised, and supposedly lost, rural lifestyle. It is presented here as the twelfth work in the Essex House Press Great Poems Series. The Essex House Press was founded by Charles Robert Ashbee and Laurence Hodson following the closure of William Morris's Kelmscott Press in 1897 and "came from the heart of the arts and crafts movement" (Franklin, p. 64). Ashbee bought the Kelmscott Press's Albion printing presses after William Morris's death, and employed one of the Kelmscott compositors, Thomas Binning. In 1902 "a bindery was established in the Guild, under the direction of Annie Power, who had been a student of Douglas Cockerell" (Crawford, p. 400). Power provided the illuminated letters for this work, alongside Florence Kingsford Cockerell (1871-1949), one of the leading book illuminators of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, who studied calligraphy under Edward Johnston and predominantly worked for the Ashendene Press. Franklin, p. 237; Ransom, Essex House Press 51. Alan Crawford, C.R. Ashbee: Architect, Designer & Romantic Socialist, 2005; John Mansfield Thomson, Farewell Colonialism: The New Zealand International Exhibition, Christchurch, 1906-07, 1998. Octavo. Original vellum, spine lettered in gilt, rose and "Soul is Form" blind-stamped to front cover. Printed in Caslon type. Hand-coloured frontispiece and colophon vignette with tissue guards, by Charles Robert Ashbee, illuminated letters in gilt, red, blue, and green by Florence Kingsford Cockerell and Anastasia Power. Neat familial ownership inscription on front free endpaper. Covers starting to bow, as often, light sporadic foxing, a very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$2340.00 + shipping
Description: 154 x 112 mm. (6 x 4 1/2"). xxv, [3], 158 pp., [1] leaf (imprint). Edited and annotated by Walter William Skeat. Charming contemporary tan pigskin, inlaid and gilt in the Arts & Crafts style, covers with delicate inlaid green morocco frame with inlaid cinquefoil flowers of honey brown morocco at corners and at center of vertical sides, this enclosing a central panel with two concentric inlaid four-lobed ornaments of green morocco, these and the outer frame with repeating gilt cinquefoils decorating the morocco, at center a wreath of 10 inlaid brown cinquefoils, the flowers connected by garlands of gilt dots, beads, and leaves, similar garlands draping from the flowers at corners and sides of outer frame, raised bands, spine compartments framed by gilt dots and circlets, with gilt cinquefoils at corners, two panels with gilt lettering, turns-ins framed by four gilt rules punctuated with gilt flowers, all edges gilt. Woodcut strapwork crest of The King's Classics on half title, engraved frontispiece of Griselda from "The Clerk's Tale." Binder's blank at front with ink presentation inscription dated January 1921. âSpine and edges of boards slightly darkened, otherwise fine, with few signs of use. This is a volume inspired by the Arts & Crafts Movement, both inside and out. The De La More Press was founded by Alexander Moring in 1895, and, while not in the first rank with Ashendene, Kelmscott, and Doves, it nevertheless produced books of very respectable quality. The text here was published as part of the De La More King's Classics Series, which included a seven-volume edition of Chaucer done into modern English by Walter William Skeat (1835-1912), a leading expert on Early English and a prolific editor. Professor Skeat has given us five of Chaucer's tales--the "Prioress's Tale," the "Pardoner's Tale," the "Clerk's Tale" of Patient Griselda, the "Nun's Tale," and the "Tale of the Canon's Yeoman"--done into modern English iambic hexameter rhymed couplets that are purposefully archaic but very readable. According to DNB, "All Skeat's vast output is distinguished by accuracy in matter of fact, wide learning, and humanity, and most of it he produced without prospect of reward, out of devotion to his subject." Of greater interest here--because it is both unique and an interesting expression of the period--is the animated binding. Its innovative and ambitious design as well as its skillful execution reflect the work of a talented amateur, perhaps a student at one of the schools of Arts & Crafts that arose from the movement. It is not Sangorski & Sutcliffe, but it has very considerable charm.
Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Rare Books (ABAA), McMinnville, OR, U.S.A.
Price: US$5262.04 + shipping
Description: 19 x 13 cm. 62 Seiten. Schwarzer Orig.-Maroquinband mit Rückentitlel und Kopfgoldschnitt. - Druck der Ashendene Press in 150 Exemplaren. Gedruckt in der Subiaco Type in Rot und Schwarz, mit großen rubrizierten Initialen in Blau von Graily Hewitt. Gedruckt von St. John und Cicely Hornby. Nach Colin Franklin ist dieses Buch eines der chamantesten Werke der Presse. Sehr schönes und sauberes Exemplar.
Seller: Antiquariat Schmidt & Günther, Kelkheim, Germany
Price: US$7044.75 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: One of 150 copies on paper, from an overall edition of 175, printed in red and black, initials supplied in blue by Graily Hewitt.Books measures 19.5x13.5.cm.62,[1]pp. Bound in original publishers full vellum, yapped edges, gilt title lettering on spine. Vellum lightly dust marked, very light vain/crease lining, slightly sprung. Generally a very good binding. Internally, pages in very good near fine condition. A nice copy. Size: 8vo
Seller: George Jeffery Books, HERTFORDSHIRE, United Kingdom
Price: US$8840.00 + shipping
Description: 268 x 182 mm. (10 3/8 x 7 1/8"). 10 volumes. EXCELLENT CRIMSON CRUSHED MOROCCO BY SANGORSKI & SUTCLIFFE (stamp-signed on front turn-ins), raised bands, spine panels with a British heraldic symbol (eagle, three lions, Tudor rose, or rampant lion), gilt lettering, gilt-ruled turn-ins, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed. Housed in two red buckram slipcases. Each volume with a frontispiece portrait, with tissue guard, printer's device on title and final pages. âVolumes I and X with a small, faint scratch near head of spine, volume VIII with three minute spots in text of two leaves, but A VERY FINE SET, clean and bright inside and out. This is a lovely copy of the publishing raison d'être of the Shakespeare Head Press, offered in a Sangorski & Sutcliffe binding with Elizabethan overtones in its spine decorations. The Shakespeare Head Press was established by Arthur Henry Bullen (1857-1920) at Stratford-on-Avon in 1904 for the express purpose of printing the first complete edition of Shakespeare to be published in the Bard's birthplace--an idea that he said came to him in a dream. In a move that linked his work to other printers of the Arts & Crafts movement, Bullen obtained equipment from William Morris' Kelmscott Press, including the older of the two presses on which the celebrated Works of Chaucer was printed. Ransom lists 20 titles issued by Bullen before his death. Afterwards, the press was acquired by a group headed by Oxford book dealer Basil Blackwell, and typographer Bernard Henry Newdigate took charge of production and printing. A further 72 privately printed titles were published between 1921 and 1941. Shakespeare Head had a distinguished output that deserves a rank in the second tier of English private presses along with the likes of Golden Cockerel and not much below Ashendene, Kelmscott, and Doves. Our set is distinguished by the work of one of the great 20th century English binderies. After studying under, and then working for, Douglas Cockerell, Francis Sangorski and George Sutcliffe founded their own bindery in 1901 and continued in a successful partnership until 1912. During that year, Francis drowned, and his brother, Alberto, who had been a central figure in producing the firm's vellum illuminated manuscripts, went over to Riviere. Despite these losses, the firm grew and prospered, employing a staff of 80 by the mid-1920s and becoming perhaps the most successful English bindery of the 20th century.
Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Rare Books (ABAA), McMinnville, OR, U.S.A.