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HERRICK, Robert.. Poems Selected from the Hesperides.. New York: The Elston Press, 1903, 1903.

Price: US$877.61 + shipping

Description: First edition thus, one of 260 copies only, printed on Mayday 1903. This finely produced edition of Herrick's poems features striking woodcuts designed by the co-runner of the Elston Press Helen Marguerite O'Kane. Her designs "complement Hesperides beautifully and reflect the qualities of equanimity, sweetness, delicacy, and youthful idyllic enjoyment of nature for which the period admired Herrick" (Gertzman, p. 130). Herrick's Hesperides, or, The Works both Humane & Divine of Robert Herrick Esq. was first published in 1648 and was viewed by Herrick as his "definitive life's work" (ODNB). This edition demonstrates the Elston Press "successfully working their way beyond the initial Kelmscott Press influence toward fully developing a unique style of its own, with O'Kane's illustrations and decorations now infused with a new artistic maturity, displaying a confident knowledge of renaissance bookmarking" (Johnson). Herbert H. Johnson, Notes on the History of the Elston Press (1997); Jay A. Gertzman, Fantasy, Fashion and Affection: Editions of Robert Herrick's Poetry for the Common Reader, 1810-1968, 1986, #56. Small quarto. Original plain cloth-backed grey boards, titles in black to paper label to spine. Rubrication and initials printed in red from designs by H. M. O'Kane, printed in Caslon Old Roman type. Spine and board edges toned, minor shelf wear to bottom edge, light scuffs and marks to boards, small ink mark to head of first blank else contents clean and bright, single gathering unopened, a very good copy.

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