Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$2220.00 + shipping
Description: Signed. Thick quarto, original quarter navy blue morocco & blue cloth (hardcover, leather), top edge gilt, 516 pp. Forty-four plates (four in color) and twelve illustrations. Very Good. This copy is the Dedication Copy, bearing an inscription on the front free endpaper from Keynes to the book's dedicatee, William Bateson: "W. Bateson from Geoffrey Keynes, February 1922." Also a printed slip tipped inside the front cover designates this copy as being assigned by The Grolier Club to the author for presentation to Bateson. An ALS from W. A. Raleigh, English essayist and biographer, written from Oxford, dated 19-v-06 and addressed to William Bateson is laid-in. In it Raleigh comments on Blake's works and beliefs: "His [Blake's] heresy on 'nature' is everywhere. I am sure he held it passionately and sincerely. and I think it more respectful to Blake to say so than to 'make allowances' for him. Shakespeare, Cervantes, Rembrandt &t. had sympathy with men as they are. Milton, Blake, &c. had not. Where's the harm? So I don't mean to give up all claim to Blake. The sects, and the aesthetes, and the hobby-mongers have been a plague of flies around him. But they must not be allowed to have him all to themselves." William Bateson (1861-1926) was a leading botanist and biologist whose research in the field of evolution focused on the discontinuity of variations in the process of heredity. "More than any other man Bateson was the founder of the experimental study of heredity and variation which was now providing a fresh orientation to the biological sciences -- a study for which he invented the term 'genetics." -- Dictionary of National Biography. In addition to his work in the field of biology, Bateson was an ardent and informed collector of art, especially Japanese woodblock prints, drawings of the old masters, and the etchings of William Blake. "The same keen sense of form which infused Bateson's science and writing found another outlet in his appreciation of art." -- DNB. Geoffrey Keyes, brother of the economist and the author of this work, is better known for his medical work where he made notable innovations in the fields of blood transfusion and breast cancer surgery. Throughout his life, however, Keynes maintained an active interest in English literature and published several biographies and bibliographies. Most noted in this field was his passion for the works of William Bake in which he became a leading authority on Blake's literary and artistic work. Literature, Author Biography. KHS - X31
Seller: Lighthouse Books, ABAA, Dade City, FL, U.S.A.