Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$5000.00 + shipping
Description: A charming book with the tissue guard protecting the illustrated title page. Bound in finely woven linen cloth and sumptuously gilded on the front and the rear boards, depicting a winged warrior standing on a writhing serpent with splendid Art Nouveau floral designs on either side of him. The panels are signed by the artist: "HGF" (H. Granville Fell) in a gilded square. The heavily gilded spine is darkened and frayed at the top and bottom of the spine ends. The top edges are gilded as well. Very clean and tight throughout. The front endpaper is lacking, and the half-title page is inscribed by Fred Holland Day: "To one who loves these better than their publisher (which is cryptical if not symbolical) FHD (monogram encircled) May 1904." The English issue consisted of 750 copies, and it is likely this issue had about the same, though the total number is not mentioned in Wade (#16). The Copeland and Day slug appears on the title page; it is also gilded at the bottom of the spine. Fred Holland Day (Boston, 1864 to 1933) was an American photographer and publisher. He was among the first in America to advocate that photography should be considered a fine art.Day spent much time among poor immigrant children in Boston, tutoring them in reading and mentoring them. One in particular, the 13-year-old Lebanese immigrant Kahlil Gibran, went on to fame as the author of The Prophet.Day co-founded and self-financed the publishing firm of Copeland and Day, which from 1893 through 1899 published about a hundred titles. The firm was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and William Morris's Kelmscott Press. The firm was the American publisher of Oscar Wilde's Salomé, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley; The Yellow Book periodical, also illustrated by Beardsley; and The Black Riders and Other Lines by Stephen Crane.
Seller: Brainerd Phillipson Rare Books, Holliston, MA, U.S.A.