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ESSEX HOUSE PRESS: GRAY, Thomas.. Elegy.. London: Essex House Press, 1900, 1900.

Price: US$1949.32 + shipping

Description: First Essex House Press edition, number 10 of 125 copies only, each printed on vellum and hand-coloured. This is the third work in the press's Great Poems Series. Gray's Elegy was originally published privately by Horace Walpole in June 1750 and distributed amongst his connections in the fashionable classes. "The poem was an instant success. and soon became the most admired and imitated poem of the century" (ODNB). 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). 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. Gray's Elegy was a popular text for the private press movement, with the Palmetto Press, the Riccardi Press, and John Henry Nash all also printing versions. Ashbee, A Bibliography of The Essex House Press, p. 10; Franklin p. 237; Ransom, Essex House Press 14. Alan Crawford, C. R. Ashbee: Architect, Designer & Romantic Socialist, 2005. Octavo. Original vellum, spine lettered in gilt, rose and "Soul is Form" blind-stamped to front cover. Printed in Caslon type. Hand-coloured wood-engraved frontispiece, hand-coloured initials throughout. A beautiful near-fine copy.

Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom