Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. ESSAYS BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON. The Doves Press, Hammersmith, 1906.
Price: US$900.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, 311, [1] pages. In Good condition. Bound in publisher's full limp vellum with gilt lettering to spine. Two small pieces of vellum torn off of lower edge of front cover. Some light creasing to spine and some light shelfwear. Some light scattered foxing. Ex-library with usual markings, including discard stamped bookplate to the front free endpaper that has been partially torn off causing minor damage to the page and ink stamps to front pastedown and page [5]. Additional bookplate to front pastedown. GH consignment. Shelved case 10. One of 300 copies. 1368348. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.
Seller: Second Story Books, ABAA, Rockville, MD, U.S.A.
Price: US$1250.00 + shipping
Description: Doves Press, London, 1906. 300 copies thus, from an edition of 325 copies. Red initial capitals launch each new essay. Full limp vellum binding by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. Gilt lettering on spine still clear. 'The Doves Bindery' notation stamped on back pastedown. A few nicks to the front vellum, and a small stain to the very top edge of the first few pages, but overall in impressive collectible condition. Photos on request.
Seller: Copperfield's Used and Rare Books, Petaluma, CA, U.S.A.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. ESSAYS BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Doves Press, London, 1906.
Price: US$1654.24 + shipping
Description: With Preface by Thomas Carlyle. Pp. 312, printed in red & black; small med. 8vo; full limp vellum, spine lettered in gilt, a trifle soiled; uncut; Dovers Bindery stamp at foot of lower pastedown, some light foxing, heavier on edges of leaves; Doves Press, London, 1906. One of 300 copies thus [total edition 325]. Tidcombe DP8. *From the library of David Levine, Sydney, with his book label above the earlier bookplate of Welsh civil servant Sir Percy Emerson Watkins (1871-1946) on the upper pastedown.
Seller: Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Essays. Doves Press, Hammersmith, 1906.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Preface by Thomas Carlyle. Printed in red & black. Large 8vo, full limp vellum stamped in gilt by the Doves Bindery, printed in gilt on the spine. Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1906. Limited Edition. Fine. Printed from the first English Edition. One of 300 copies, but lacking this information in the colophon.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$3800.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Small 4to, 9 1/4 x 6.5 in (235 x 166 mm). Pp. xiv, 132, xii; printed in black and red ink; pages clean and bright, with no foxing or staining. Original full limp vellum by the Doves Bindery, stamp at foot of lower pastedown, spine lettered in gilt. One of 300 copies on paper, from a total edition 325. [Tidcombe DP8; Tomkinson, p. 55, no. 9; Ransom, p. 251, no. 9; Cobden-Sanderson, Cosmic Vision, p. 137]. Young Cobden-Sanderson had met the American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) in the 1860s when Emerson was visiting London and was attracted to his "idealism, and to the hint of mysticism that coloured his view of nature. In Cobden-Sanderson's mind Emerson was "a pinnacle of a man.' (Tidcombe p. 53) Emerson led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century and remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement. His work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that followed him. "In all my lectures," he wrote, "I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man" (Journal, April 7, 1840). This beautiful Doves Press edition includes the 12 essays that were originally in the first of two volumes of essays, published in 1841, and include "Love," "Friendship," "Self-Reliance," "Intellect," "Art." In his fundamental book "Private Presses and Their Books," Will Ransom writes «.if we follow the momentum of the Nineties over the turn of the century we find 1900 ushering in an outstanding figure and a famous achievement, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and the Doves Press.» (p.35) During the 16 years that The Doves Press was in business, Cobden-Sanderson managed to produce 40 books bound in 45 volumes. Perfectionism and dedication lead to the creation of some of the most simply elegant books of the 20th century. His version of the ideal book in which the design did not get in the way of the reader's ability to see the author's message proved to be terribly popular, especially after The Doves Press closed in 1916. Based in Hammersmith, London, the Doves Press was founded by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson who was a friend of William Morris and a staunch supporter of Arts and Crafts ideology. The press was established with funds from Cobden-Sanderson's wife Anne and by 1900, Emery Walker was asked to join as a partner. A distinguishing feature of the Dove Press books was a specially-devised typeface, known variously as the Doves Roman, the Doves Press Fount of Type, or simply the Doves Type. Cobden-Sanderson and Walker were in a protracted and bitter dispute involving the rights to the Doves Type in the dissolution of their partnership around 1909. All rights to the Doves Type were to pass to Walker upon the death of Cobden-Sanderson. Instead, as recorded in his Journals, Cobden-Sanderson destroyed all the matrices by throwing them into the Thames River off Hammersmith Bridge in London, a short walk from the Press. His Journals record 170 trips to the Thames, always after dusk, from August 1916 through January 1917. «Yes; yesterday, and the day before, and Tuesday I stood on the bridge at Hammersmith, and, looking towards the Press and the sun setting, threw into the Thames below me the matrices from which had been cast the Doves Press Fount of Type.» [The Journals of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, 1879-1922, p. 214] After Cobden-Sanderson's death, Walker sued his widow and received payment for the loss of the rights to the type. Since the beginning of digital type, several designers have reproduced the typeface. In 2013, the designer Robert Green began to create a more polished digital version of the Doves type and in 2015, after searching the riverbed of the Thames near Hammersmith Bridge with help from the Port of London Authority, Green managed to recover 150 pieces of the original type, which helped him to refine the font. ['The fight over the Doves: A legendary typeface gets a second life.' The Economist, December 19, 2013.].
Seller: Rob Zanger Rare Books LLC, Middletown, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$5200.00 + shipping
Description: 234 x 165 mm. (9 1/4 x 6 1/2"). 311, [1] pp.Preface by Thomas Carlyle. EXTREMELY ATTRACTIVE DARK BLUE CRUSHED MOROCCO, GILT, IN THE STYLE OF THE DOVES BINDERY (stamp-signed and dated 1907 on rear turn-in), covers with large strapwork arabesque accented with floral sprays and small tools, raised bands, spine compartments with mirrored floral design, gilt rule turn-ins with floral cornerpieces, all edges gilt and gauffered with two rows of dots. Housed in a fleece-lined blue buckram slipcase. Initials in red, two pages partly printed in red. Tidcombe DP8; Tomkinson, p. 55. For the binding: Tidcombe, p. 464. âLight offsetting to free endpapers from turn-ins (as usual), A VERY FINE COPY, the text fresh and bright, and the binding sparkling and unworn. This is one of the 26 intriguing (and obviously uncommon) examples Tidcombe has identified as imitation Doves bindings, a group of handsomely executed volumes that continue to be mysterious. Tidcombe differentiates between (a) forgeries (those books that are stamp-signed with "C - S" and a date) and (b) unsigned "copies of Doves bindings or bindings in the Doves style." But she treats them as one group because of their common features. For example, signed or unsigned, all of the suspect bindings cover Doves Press books, are bound in dark blue morocco, have green silk double headbands, have the letters "E" and "S" close together on the signature pallet, and so on. Although Tidcombe suggests that the person responsible for the forged Doves bindings could possibly have been the former Doves Bindery finisher Charles McLeish, she does not settle on him or any other likely candidate. Whoever was behind them, the volumes in this puzzling group of bindings are actively collected for their value as counterfeits. The Doves Press was founded in 1900 by Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker to produce their ideal of the "Book Beautiful." Over the next 16 years, they produced 51 titles in which they demonstrated that printing with plain type (designed by Walker) that is well set and with good margins could produce notable work. As Cave says, the Doves Press books, "completely without ornament or illustration, . . . depended for their beauty almost entirely on the clarity of the type, the excellence of the layout, and the perfection of the presswork." The text here is by the American Transcendentalist poet and philosopher that, Tidcombe tells us, Cobden-Sanderson considered "a pinnacle of a man." Cobden-Sanderson met Emerson when the latter visited London in the 1860s; Tidcombe notes that the future binding and private press pioneer was drawn to Emerson's "idealism, and to the hint of mysticism that coloured his view of nature." The essays here are from a collection first published in 1841, and include "Love," "Friendship," "Self-Reliance," "Intellect," and "Art.". ONE OF 300 COPIES ON PAPER (and 25 on vellum).
Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Rare Books (ABAA), McMinnville, OR, U.S.A.
Price: US$19212.96 + shipping
Description: 8vo. (235 x 170 mm). [164 leaves including blanks; pp. 311, (i)]. Leaf with printed title recto, five leaves with Thomas Carlyle's preface recto and verso, leaf with list of contents and Emerson's twelve essays, each with four-line initial in red, final leaf of text with colophon verso. (Sheet size: 234 x 166 mm). Original publisher's limp vellum with stamped signature to rear pastedown: 'THE DOVES BINDERY', paper endpapers and pastedowns, title gilt to spine. A fine copy on vellum of Emerson's Essays, the only American text printed at the Doves Press. From the edition limited to 325 copies, with this one of 25 on vellum. 'Cobden-Sanderson had actually met Emerson once when Emerson was visiting London in the 1860s. In a presentation copy of the Doves edition of the Essays, Cobden-Sanderson wrote that they were printed in memory of a conversation he had had with Emerson as they walked together down Pall Mall. Cobden-Sanderson was attracted to Emerson's idealism, and to the hint of mysticism that coloured his view of nature. In Cobden-Sanderson's mind Emerson was 'a pinncale of a man'. The Essays, issued in June 1906, were printed from the first English edition, with a preface by Carlyle. It was the first Doves Press book in which Miller and Richard's Old Style italic was used. '. (Tidcombe). [Tidcombe DP8; see Ransom, Doves 9].
Seller: Sims Reed Ltd ABA ILAB, London, United Kingdom