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William Shakespeare. The Poems of William Shakespeare, according to the text of the original copies, including the lyrics, songs, and snatches found in his dramas, Printed at the Essex House Press under the care of C.R. Ashbee, December 1899. Printed at the Essex House Press and published by Edwin Arnold, 1899.

Price: US$1105.14 + shipping

Condition: Near Fine

Description: ( 5 preliminary pages), 253 pages, engraved plate with tissue guard, near fine condition in vellum covers with the four cloth ties, vellum marked and slightly stained, text in fine, clean condition, number 111 of an edition of 450 copies, contained in a cloth covered slipcase (slightly worn and stained). Heavy book-additional shipping will be requested for destinations out-with the United Kingdom

Seller: Provan Books, Glasgow, United Kingdom

ESSEX HOUSE PRESS. SHAKESPEARE, William.. The Poems of William Shakespeare, According to the Text of the Original Copies, including the Lyrics, Songs, and Snatches found in his Dramas.. The Essex House Press, [London, 1899.

Price: US$1250.00 + shipping

Description: 254 pp. Small 4to, publishers limp vellum gilt-lettered at the spine, with ribbon ties present but frayed. First edition; No. 374 of 450 copies. Bookplate on front free endpaper; a very attractive, clean and unworn copy. Printed in red and black.

Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.

SHAKESPEARE, William. Poems. Essex House, London, 1899.

Price: US$1500.00 + shipping

Condition: Near Fine

Description: Printed in red & black; woodcut initials, small 4to, original flexible vellum, all 4 ties present. London: Essex House, 1899. Limited Edition. Near Fine. Number 59 of 450 copies.

Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.

Shakespeare, William. The Poems of William Shakespeare, According to the Text of the Original Copies, including the Lyrics, Songs, and Snatches Found in his Dramas. Edward Arnold 1899, London, 1899.

Price: US$1625.21 + shipping

Condition: Fine

Description: Limited Edition. [ix], 254 pp. Full brown leather with elaborate gilt borders and lettering to boards, with the same and raised bands to spine; blue endpapers, all edges gilt. Beautifully bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. A few small marks of wear to front joint and spine bands, minor rubbing to board edges - generally clean and bright. Minor offsetting to endpapers, otherwise internally clean and bright. Includes the major narrative poems, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, A Lover's Complaint, Phoenix and the Turtle etc., as well as the Sonnets, and songs and poetic 'snatches' from the plays. Printed in black and red with historiated initials throughout. Numbered 6 of 450 copies produced by the famous Essex House Press. An extremely attractive fine copy. Large 8vo. Limited Edition

Seller: Foster Books - Stephen Foster - ABA, ILAB, & PBFA, London, United Kingdom

William Shakespeare. The Poems of William Shakespeare According to the Text of the Original Copies, Including the Lyrics, Songs, and Snatches Found in His Dramas. The Essex House Press / Edward Arnold, London, 1899.

Price: US$1850.00 + shipping

Description: This is the publisher’s magnificent, limited, and hand-numbered edition in the style of William Morris’s Kelmscott Press, featuring limp vellum with gilt-stamped spine, yapped fore edges, and integral silk ties. The contents are printed on hand-made paper with untrimmed edges printed in red and black with large woodcut initial capitals at each stanza, as well as a woodcut illustration for "Venus and Adonis" by Reginald Savage. Condition is truly fine. The vellum binding is exceptional, showing only the mildest age-toning and trivial hints of soiling. The integral silk ties are present and clean, unsoiled and with wrinkling attendant only to having been tied. The contents are pristine – crisp, bright, and immaculately clean with no spotting, soiling, toning, or ownership marks, and with uncut signatures throughout. Per the limitation statement, this text is "According to the text of the earliest editions, arranged, and carefully collated with the originals, by F. S. Ellis, and printed at the Essex House Press under the care of C. R. Ashbee, December, 1899". The limitation statement is hand-numbered "402" of a stated 450 copies.Exceptional condition owes to its protection within a fine paper-lined red cloth chemise, housed within a quarter Morocco slipcase featuring rounded, hubbed, and gilt-printed red goatskin spine over red cloth sides with gilt-rule transition and beveled edge opening. Condition of the slipcase is good plus, unfaded though modestly scuffed and soiled. The contents of the edition are a noteworthy curation. Shakespeare’s plays are the most conspicuous aspect of his literary legacy, but, as the poet Robert Graves wrote of Shakespeare, "In the plays we are frequently aware of Shakespeare the poet; in the Sonnets we recognize his role as dramatist." This edition of The Poems of William Shakespeare of course includes the Sonnets, but reaches well beyond them, also including narrative poems, poems from The Passionate Pilgrim, the allegorical poem "The Phoenix and Turtle", and "lyrics, songs and snatches from the dramas".The publisher, the Essex House Press, founded by Charles Robert Ashbee, was an immediate and intentional descendant of Kelmscott Press. William Morris established the Kelmscott Press, which between 1891 and 1898 produced 53 books. "Kelmscott was the culmination of Morris’s life as a craftsman in many diverse fields. He set out to prove that the high standards of the past could be repeated - even surpassed - in the present. The books Morris produced were therefore medieval in design, modeled on the incunabula of the fifteenth century Noteworthy for their harmony of type and illustration, Morris' main priority was to have each book seen as a whole: this included taking painstaking care with all aspects of production, including the paper, the form of type, the spacing of the letters, and the position of the printed matter on the page. Kelmscott books re-awakened the ideals of book design and inspired better standards of production at a time when the printed page was generally at its poorest." The Essex House Press was one of "numerous other presses set up to perpetuate Morris' aims." (University of Glasgow)In 1898, when William Morris’s famous Kelmscott Press was closing down, Ashbee, who also ran the Guild of Handcraft, acquired two of Kelmscott’s Albion printing presses and employed one of the Kelmscott compositors. "Ashbee was keen to carry on the work of Morris’s Press." Indeed, "the ink, paper, and vellum are the same as those used in the Kelmscott books". This 1899 edition of Shakespeare’s poems is among Ashbee’s early efforts in that vein. The Essex House Press moved with the Guild to Chipping Campden in 1902, and produced 84 titles. In 1907 the Press closed, but it was taken over by Ashbee’s friend the Sri Lankan philosopher, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and continued until 1910. (The Cheltenham Trust and Ashbee’s Essex House Bibliography) Limited, finely bound, hand-numbered edition.

Seller: Churchill Book Collector ABAA/ILAB/IOBA, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.

SHAKESPEARE, William. THE POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, According to the Text of the Original Copies, including the Lyrics, Songs, and Snatches found in his Dramas.. London: The Essex House Press / Edward Arnold. December, 1899.

Price: US$1885.24 + shipping

Description: Limited edition. Publisher's original limp yapped vellum, titles in gilt to the spine. Four silk ties. Arranged, and collated with the originals by F. S. Ellis, and printed at the Essex House Press, under the care of C. R. Ashbee. With large woodcut initial capitals by Reginald Savage. Printed in black and red. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, all four ties present as called for. The contents, entirely uncut and with the small red morocco bookplate of Charles De Forest to the front pastedown, are otherwise clean throughout. Housed in an elegant early 20th century full blue morocco slipcase with five raised bands and titles in gilt to the spine. Issued in a limited edition of 450 copies, this example is hand-numbered 425. Further details and images for any of the items listed are available on request. Lucius Books welcomes direct contact with our customers.

Seller: LUCIUS BOOKS (ABA, ILAB, PBFA), York, United Kingdom

Shakespeare, William. Poems of Shakespeare. Edward Arnold, London, 1899.

Price: US$1885.24 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: Hardcover, beautifully bound in brown leather with gilt decorative borders, five raised bands and gilt printing to spine and page block in full gilt. Printed at the Essex House Press under the care of C.R. Ashbee and decorated with wood-cut illustrations throughout. From a limited run of 450 copies, this is number 251. It comes from the private library of Robert Allan Fitzsimons (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, 1892-1978), with his bookplate to second endpage. Previously the property of Shakespearean actor Johnston Forbes Robertson (1853-1937), with an inscription to FEP reading: "From Mrs Grosvenor June 6th 1913, My last night before a London audience, J Forbes-Robertson." Newspaper clipping from The Times, April 25, 1960, in which the silent film release of Forbes-Robertson's 1913 performance of Hamlet is reviewed, is laid-in to front endpapers. There are a couple of faint marks to boards and minor tanning to the endpapers. Spine is lightly sunned and very slightly worn at ends. Contents are clean and unmarked. More photos available upon request. AD

Seller: PsychoBabel & Skoob Books, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OXON, United Kingdom

Shakespeare, William. The Poems of William Shakespeare according to the text of the original copies, including the lyrics, songs, and snatches found in his dramas; according to the text of the original copies, including the lyrics, songs, and snatches found in his dramas. Essex House Press, London, 1899.

Price: US$2000.00 + shipping

Condition: Near Fine

Description: 4to; 9 1/8 x 6 3/4 in. (231 x 173 mm); pp. (iv) + x + 254 + [4 l.]; Caslon type in red and black on hand-made paper, uncut; wood-engraved plate by Reginald Savage, wood-engraved initials by C.R. Ashbee; original limp vellum, with four original silk ties, gilt lettering on spine; minor soiling on vellum and small area of offset on ffp from bookseller ticket, but binding is tight and pages bright and clean. This is no. 112 of a limited printing of 450 copies. Provenance: Ken Tomkinson, High Habberley House, Kidderminster, bookplate loosely inserted. [Butcher p. 265, no. 9; Tomkinson p. 69, no 9]. Kenneth Tomkinson (1918-1985) was the son of Geoffrey Stewart Tomkinson (1881-1963), author of A Select Bibliography of the Principal Modern Presses Public and Private in Great Britain and Ireland, 1928, and he continued his father's private press collection. This volume contains Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, Sonnets, Lover's Complaint, Poems from the Passionate Pilgrim, The Phoenix and Turtle, Lyrics, songs and snatches from the dramas. THE ESSEX HOUSE PRESS, established by Laurence Hodson and C. R. Ashbee in connection with the Guild of Handicraft in 1898, was something more of a communal than a personal affair, yet it was always a reflection of Mr. Ashbee's individual viewpoint It was founded "in the hope to keep living the traditions of good printing that William Morris had revived" and was manned by former employees of the Kelmscott Press (Butcher, p. 41).

Seller: Rob Zanger Rare Books LLC, Middletown, NY, U.S.A.

SHAKESPEARE, William. Poems.. London: The Essex House Press., 1899.

Price: US$3640.47 + shipping

Condition: Fine

Description: Full morocco, 9 inches tall. The poems of William Shakespeare according to the text of the earliest editions. Arranged, and collated with the originals by F.S. Ellis, and printed at the Essex House Press, under the care of C.R. Ashbee. Superbly printed in black with red headings on handmade paper. The Flat back spine and boards have superb gilt tooling in the finest 'arts and crafts' manner. Gilt dentelles and all edges. There are two ink inscription on the first blank. Elaborate initials throughout and one fine full page illustration of Venus and Adonis. Number 258 of 450 copies. Within a year of William Morris's death the Kelmscott Press closed and several of the key designers under Ashbee moved to create the Essex House Press and retained much of the former's style of printing and binding.

Seller: McConnell Fine Books ABA & ILAB, Deal, KENT, United Kingdom