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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