Catalogue No. 2 - Recent Acquisitions (May 2019)
Listing of all books from the catalogue is below:
1) [Bruce Rogers] Raleigh, Sir Walter. A Report of the truth concerning the last sea-fight of the Revenge. [Cambridge, MA:] The Riverside Press, 1902. Limited to 300 copies, of which this is #199. Title page with a woodcut after Howard Pyle and woodcut border, plus opening initial. Printed from a “trial” version of the Montaigne type on handmade Unbleached Arnold paper under the direction of Bruce Rogers. Cloth spine with decorative paper boards and printed paper label to front cover. Uncut. 19 pp. Bookplate of Frank O. Lowden to front pastedown, designed by Ralph M. Pearson in his distinctive style. Measures approx. 8" x 11.75". Some light edgewear and browning to covers, foxing to endpapers and first eight pages of text. Grolier 82.
SOLD
2) [Bruce Rogers] The Footlight Club; One Hundredth Performance. A Scrap of Paper. Eliot Hall, Jamaica Plain: The Riverside Press, 1906. Printed under the direction of Bruce Rogers. Deluxe edition, bound in dark burgundy morocco over flexible boards with gilt lettering to front cover. (The standard edition was bound in cloth of a similar shade.) Gilt decorated endpapers. All edges gilt. The title page decoration was later re-used by Rogers for the Centenary of William Makepeace Thackeray meeting at the Club of Odd Volumes in 1911, and subsequently reproduced in Frederic Warde’s BR bibliography (1925) and Typographic Trivialities (item #9 in this list). Measures approx. 5.25" x 8.5". Rubbing and edgewear, with the leather worn and chipped from the lower tip of the front cover (other corners worn). Upper spine tip chipped.
“The Footlight Club is the oldest continuously-running community theatre group in the United States of America, having performed every year since 1877. It is a non-profit organization, incorporated as such in 1927. Based in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, the club currently owns and resides in historic Eliot Hall, which its members purchased in 1889 to provide a home for performances and save the building from demolition” (Wikipedia).
Very scarce. The only copy currently for sale online. Grolier 141a.
SOLD
3) [Bruce Rogers] Townsend, Horace. Printer’s Marks: Being a Brief Consideration of Some Marks Used by Printers in the XV Century. With Special Reference to a XX Century Mark. New York: Bartlett-Orr Press, 1913. Title page in black and red, ruled border and printer’s mark on each text page, large mark in red of the Society of Venetian Printers as colophon. Large woodcut frontispiece of Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer. Printed from Kennerley type on handmade paper under the direction of Bruce Rogers. Wrappers, 8pp. Small bookplate on inner cover of New York attorney Harry C. Goebel. Measures approx. 8.75" x 11.5". Some light wear to edges and spotting to covers; small stamp to lower left of front cover.
“The historical reference to the early printers’ devices leads up very interestingly to the later printer’s mark - that of the Bartlett-Orr Press - but when one reaches this portion of the book one continues to read, for the work is so beautifully done it cannot be put down until the final page is examined. … Mr. Orr has paid the craft a distinct compliment in adding this piece of advertising literature to that already produced by his company…” (“The Printing Art Suggestion Book”, 1913).
A fantastic example of Bruce Rogers’ design. The only copy currently for sale online. Grolier 229.
SOLD
4) [Bruce Rogers] [Winship, G.P.] Luther S. Livingston: 1864-1914. [Montague, MA:] Privately printed at the Montague Press, 1914. “Written for, and first printed in, the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. Two hundred copies printed at the Montague Press in April, 1915.” Printed from Caslon type on handmade paper under the direction of Bruce Rogers. Portrait of Livingston as frontispiece, with original tissue guard included. Tan cloth spine with grey paper-covered boards. Gilt lettering to front cover. Inscription on ffep: “E.W.H. from Mrs. Luther Livingston”. Measures approx. 6" x 8.5". Some light soiling to cloth spine, and bump to lower covers.
“Luther Samuel Livingston (July 6, 1864 – December 24, 1914) was an American bibliophile and scholar. He was the first curator of the Harry Elkins Widener Collection at Harvard University, but died just a few weeks after being appointed” (Wikipedia). BR handled the direction of Livingston’s Franklin and His Press at Passy, published by the Grolier Club in 1914, as well as the posthumous Franklin item The Story of the Whistle, published by the Harvard University Press in 1922 (item #6 in this list).
The only copy currently for sale online. Grolier 234.
SOLD
5) [Bruce Rogers] A Selection Of Books From The Library Of The Late John Williams White, Formerly Professor Of Greek In Harvard University. Cambridge, MA: Dunster House, 1921. Printed at William Edwin Rudge from Garamond, Caslon, and Linotype Greek types, under the direction of Bruce Rogers. Roundel in black and ochre red of a Grecian with scroll to front cover. Stylized greek key pattern catalogue heading in red, and Dunster House ornament of a reader in his library as colophon. Measures approx. 5.5" x 8.75". Some browning to covers. The only copy currently for sale online. Grolier 304.
SOLD
6) [Bruce Rogers] Franklin, Benjamin. The Story of the Whistle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1922. Limited to 125 copies. Introduction by Luther S. Livingston. Printed from Caslon type under the direction of Bruce Rogers. The third “Livingston Reprint”, issued privately in fulfillment of plans made by Livingston after his appointment as librarian at the Harry Elkins Widener Collection. Each of these reprints were printed at Franklin’s private press at Passy in France, and reprints the original edition in facsimile. This volume also includes a bibliography of editions of Franklin, printed before 1821, that included this story. Wrappers, 34pp. Measures approx. 5" x 7.75". Some light browning & edgewear to covers, minor foxing to pages.
A very scarce BR item. The only copy currently for sale online. Grolier 267.
SOLD
7) [Bruce Rogers] Murdock, Kenneth B. The Portraits of Increase Mather with Some Notes on Thomas Johnson, an English Mezzotinter. Cleveland: For Private Distribution by William Gwinn Mather, 1924. Printed by Bruce Rogers at the Harvard University Press. Limited to 250 copies, of which this is #43. Inscribed by Mather. Printed from Baskerville type on handmade Batchelor paper. Frontis portrait, plus nine other portraits. Morocco spine and marbled boards. Housed in original slipcase with original cardboard folder/jacket. Top edge gilt. 70 pp. Measures approx. 7.75" x 10.25". Some light rubbing to spine tips. Slipcase worn. Grolier 277.
SOLD
8) [Bruce Rogers] Dibdin, Thomas Frognall. Venetian Printers: A Conversation on the Fourth Day of the Bibliographical Decameron of Thomas Frognall Dibdin with Annotations. Mount Vernon, NY: Privately printed for Bruce Rogers at the Press of William Edwin Rudge, 1924. Limited to 223 copies. Several initials by Rogers. Printed from Italian Old Style type on cream J.W. Zanders handmade paper. Printed wrappers, 14pp. Measures approx. 8.75" x 12.25". Some browning to covers and light wear to edges. Grolier 333.
SOLD
9) [Bruce Rogers] Typographic Trivialities: Presentation Volume to Members of the Double Crown Club. [New York: Harbor Press, 1926.] According to Haas, limited to 24 copies, but limitation unstated; nevertheless, a very small amount of copies were printed. Printed on handmade paper, presented to the Double Crown Club and signed in facsimile by Bruce Rogers. The Double Crown Club, founded in 1924, was a dining club and society of printers, publishers, book designers and illustrators in London. 18 reproductions of work by Rogers from various items, 1907-1925, including type specimens, ornaments, thistle-marks, etc., plus two tipped in specimen leaves from books. The tipped in leaves are from Kipling's On Dry Cow Fishing as a Fine Art (Rowfant Club, 1925) and Michael Arlen's The Green Hat (Doran, 1925). Curwen patterned paper wrappers with printed label on the front cover. Measures approx. 6" x 9". Covers a bit chipped and browned, paper lacking on spine. The only copy currently for sale online. Grolier 374.
SOLD
10) Hunter, Dard. Romance of Watermarks: A Discourse in the Origin and Motive of These Mystic Symbols Which First Appeared in Italy Near the End of the 13th Century. Cincinnati, OH: The Stratford Press (Private Press of E F Gleason), [1939]. Limited to 210 copies. Also includes “A Biographical Sketch of the Author” by Katherine Fisher. Printed from Cloister Old Style type on handmade Andorra paper. Paper covered boards with a small portrait of Dard Hunter to front cover with white cloth back and gilt lettering to spine. Original glassine wrapper. 34 pp. Measures approx. 5.5" x 8". A bit of wear to edges of spine. The only copy currently for sale online.
SOLD
11) Wordsworth, William. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. [Renaissance, CA:] Petrarch Press, 1985. “William Wordworth’s Ode is the initial offering of The Petrarch Press. It was printed with Caslon type-faces on an 1865 Albion Super Royal press. Sixty are printed on Mohawk Letterpress, three on Fabriano’s Umbria; two are on Rives Lightweight and four on parchment. Work was completed on the fifth day of December MCMLXXXV.” This copy is one of the four on parchment. Paper wrappers plus five leaves of parchment, string-bound. [12 pp.] The first publication from the renowned Petrarch Press, and appears to be unrecorded in all references to the press. No copies held institutionally–paper nor parchment–according to WorldCat and COPAC. Measures approx. 6.25" x 9". From bottom spine corner, an approx. 2" semicircle of staining through all pages; most prominent in first six pages. Text not affected.
“The Petrarch Press was founded in California’s Sierra foothills in 1985 by Peter Bishop with the aim to publish important world literature in fine, hand-printed editions. Starting out ‘with Lewis Allen’s Printing with the Handpress in one hand and a composing stick in the other’, and inspired by the work of Joseph Blumenthal and Giovanni Mardersteig, Peter taught himself to print, in the tradition of earlier fine-press printers, on his 1865 cast-iron Albion Super Royal handpress. Peter then accepted the additional challenge of learning to print on parchment, a material used by early fine printers for special copies of important books. This became a hallmark of the Petrarch Press, where a number of special copies of every major book were printed on sheepskin parchment” (Peter Bishop’s Petrarch Press, website).
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12) Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus [Erasmus of Rotterdam]. Moriae Encomiom, Stultitiae laus [In Praise of Folly]. Hagæ-Com [The Hague], Martinus Nijhoff, 1898. One of two copies printed entirely on parchment (Oude en nieuwe boekhandel van Martinus Nijhoff te ’s-Gravenhage: fondscatalogus 1853-1897, 1898). Text in Latin. Edited by J.B. Kan. 192 pp. Illustrated with the famous pen and ink drawings of Hans Holbein the Younger, made in a copy of the Basel edition of 1515. Limp vellum binding with title in ink to spine; endpapers and two flyleaves of laid paper. Measures approx. 5.25" x 8". Vellum covers and both pastedowns browned. Some light browning to the pages, as well as a lack of opacity to parchment (rendering it nearly translucent) to pp. 25-32 and some rippling to the edges of those pages, but this is most likely a natural occurrence of the skins chosen.
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13) Gray, Thomas. An Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Boston, MA: The Craftsman’s Guild, 1901. Limited to 150 copies bound in half vellum and printed on Japan vellum, of which this is #20. Printed without type–each letter, initial, and border was drawn by Herbert Gregson. Signed by Gregson and the illuminator, Adele Riggles(?). All pages illuminated with watercolors, with title page illuminated in gilt and color. Paper covered boards with vellum spine. Gilt lettering to spine and printed decoration in black to front cover. Measures approx. 8.75" x 11.25". Some wear to corners and light browning to vellum. Small spot of wear to colophon page at the limitation number.
“The decorative designs consist of thirty-two initials, seventeen half borders, an appropriate title-page, and cover design. Two stanzas of the poem are given place on each page. The size of the sheets is based upon a stately quarto printed Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1496, which measures 9 ½ x 12. … [T]he edition…ought to go into the hands of all those who love and can afford to buy fine examples of book making, even if it is modern” (“The Independent”, 1901).
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14) Brown, Anna Robertson. What is Worth While?. New York & Boston: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1897. The cover ornament, title page, and opening initial were designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, and the colophon states that the volume was printed “from designs supplied by D. B. Updike [at] The Merrymount Press…”. Paper-covered boards with gilt ornament to front cover.
Gift inscription to Louise Averill Cole from her mother on ffep, along with Cole’s bookplate on front pastedown. Landscape painting in watercolors by Q.J. Dearborn(?) on half-title page. Hand colored title page done in blue, red, green, yellow, and gold on a background of silver paint. Opening initial illuminated in yellow, green, red, blue, and gold. Text heavily annotated by Cole’s mother in blue pen, as well as many passages underlined in gold. A few passages annotated by Cole herself in pencil (noted below). Back of colophon page features another watercolor landscape, and the back free endpaper features an image of Cole’s mother pasted to it, which has been painted over in watercolor.
This volume was a gift to Louise Averill Cole on her 20th birthday from her mother, while she was studying in Berlin in 1900. Cole studied abroad for eight years in Europe, and after “completing a three-year course in binding and finishing under Louis Jacobs and Joseph Hendricks in Brussels” in 1906, she worked and taught with Lady Mary Noble in London, whom she had met through Douglas Cockerell (Women Bookbinders, 1880-1920, Tidcombe). Cole is most well known for overseeing the Riverside Press hand bindery from 1908-1912, and was one of the most skilled bookbinders of her time, particularly in the use of onlays.
This extra illustrated volume provides a unique snapshot into Cole’s views on the role women were expected play at the turn of the century. Anna Robertson Brown was the first woman to earn a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania, and the text of this volume comes from a paper read to the Philadelphia Branch of Association of Collegiate Alumnae. (As with many of Crowell’s publications, What is Worth While? was produced as a gift volume, though with Goodhue’s designs, it has stood the test of time better than most.)
From a content standpoint, however, three of Brown’s passages in particular are at odds with Cole’s thinking. The vast majority of the annotations in the volume are provided by Cole’s mother in blue pen, but Cole has made three annotations in pencil (pictured in the images), all related to eschewing the traditional role women should play in the home. For example, alongside the following passage:
Let us lay hold of common duties and relations. Let us lay hold of the tenderness that belongs to them. Shall we miss all the divine sweetness of life in order to have a career? Shall we shed home, family, relatives, and domestic duties, in order to learn Sanskrit, ethnology, philology? Not all college-bred women think how that sounds when, led by no pressure of bread-winning which impels to seek higher advantages, but simply by an absorbing ambition, they leave their father or mother, or both, in a lonely home.
Cole has written: “I do not agree with this”. Given where Cole’s ambition and talent took her from this first year abroad in 1900, one cannot doubt the sincerity of that statement.
Measures approx. 5" x 7.75". Some rubbing to edges and spine tips chipped and worn.
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15) Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Sonnets from the Portuguese. Boston, MA: Copeland & Day, 1896. Fifty-one initials and a border by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. “This edition of Mrs’ Browning’s SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE consists of seven hundred and fifty copies printed by the University Press on English handmade paper with fifty additional copies having rubricated initials. The ornamental designs are by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. This is the third volume of English Love Sonnets issued by COPELAND AND DAY from 69 Cornhill, Boston.” Bound in full red morocco by The Harcourt Bindery (Boston), featuring a variety of gilt borders to covers, with four bands to spine, as well as gilt borders, title, and decoration. Extensive gilt decoration to turn-ins. Light pink, red, and blue marbled endpapers. 51 pp. Measures approx. 6" x 8". Wartime gift inscription (dated 1942) from a U.S. soldier to his “dearest princess”, with a notice of his death in 1944 loosely inserted. Light rubbing to edges of spine, as well as some minor darkening.
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16) Holmes, Oliver Wendell. Over the Teacups. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1891. Printed at the Riverside Press. Bound in full crushed russet brown morocco by Otto Zahn at S.C. Toof & Co., with the front cover featuring a wide floral gilt border frame of vines, leaves, and flowers, intertwining gilt fillet borders, with the title stamped near the top. Back cover with floral gilt tooling near corners and top and bottom of fillets. Spine with five raised bands, gilt-ruled panels with flowers, vines, and leaves; second panel with title, and date stamped at bottom of the spine. Top edge gilt. Narrow turn-ins with gilt ruling around inner board and gilt flowers and leaves at corners; marbled endpapers. Gift inscription on ffep–dated 1897, likely contemporary with the binding of this volume. Light rubbing to corners and a few spots to covers.
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17) Lang, Andrew (translator). Aucassin & Nicolete. London: David Nutt, 1887. Limited to 550 copies, all on Japanese paper. Etched frontispiece by P.J. Hood. The half-title page has been embellished with watercolors and gold paint, and a copy of James Russell Lowell’s poem “With a Copy of Aucassin and Nicolete”, printed on very fragile tissue paper, has been bound in adjacent to the dedication page to Lowell. Bound in dark brown morocco leather with a diapered pattern in gilt of a rose, stem, and leaves across both covers. Five bands to spine, with single gilt rose to each compartment, and title and author to second compartment. Elaborate gilt turn-ins. Marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Binding is unsigned, but most reminiscent of the bindings Zaehnsdorf was producing at the time. Measures 4" x 6.5". Light rubbing to front hinge, particularly at bands.
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18) Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Shelley. [Poems Selected, Arranged, and Printed by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson at The Doves Press]. Hammersmith: The Doves Press, 1914. One of 12 copies printed on vellum. Printed in black and red. Bound in full navy blue morocco by The Doves Bindery (dated “1914” on the rear turn-in), with gilt-rule frame to covers, raised bands, spine gilt in compartments made with single gilt rule, “SHELLEY” in gilt to second compartment, and dual gilt border to turn-ins. All edges gilt and gauffered with rows of dots. Vellum endpapers. 181 pp. Measures approx 6.75" x 9.25". Minor restoration to the rear outer hinge, light rubbing to spine bands, and corners bumped. Some natural browning and foxing to vellum.
A rare opportunity to own a Doves Press title on vellum.
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19) Kempis, Thomas A. The Imitation of Christ. London: Methuen and Co., 1894. Illustrated by Charles March Gere with 4 black and white drawings + frontispiece. Red titles and initial letters throughout the text. Bound in a full vellum binding by The Doves Bindery in the style of the Kelmscott Press (signed “THE DOVES BINDERY / 18 C-S 95” in rear). Vellum with gilt-decorated yapped fore edges, tooled with evenly spaced gilt diamonds, the covers woven through with two gilt tooled vellum slips, also tooled with diamonds, and fully intact silk ribbon ties. All four vellum slips are visible inside the boards. Gilt lettering to the spine. Vellum endpapers. All edges gilt. Previous owners name, dated 1895, beautifully painted on the front free vellum endpaper in blue and the date, “Easter 1895”, below in red. The first blank paper endpaper has a calligraphic quote in Latin from Easter Vespers in gothic script within ruled lines, in red black and blue and an inscription in red at the bottom of the page. Measures approx. 4.5" x 6.75". Vellum darkened and browned, but gilt decoration is bright and ties are faded, but fully intact (all the way down to the ends of the ties that were ironed into a point). Vellum endleaves browned.
This volume is most likely Tidcombe 142, an early Doves Bindery example, as well as one of a limited amount of non-gift books done in limp vellum. The majority of limp vellum bindings produced at The Doves Bindery were for blank books.
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20) Sneath, E. Hershey. The Mind of Tennyson: His Thoughts on God, Freedom and Immortality. London: Archibald Constable and Co., 1901. A fascinating turn-of-the-century arts & crafts embroidered binding done on a backing of japan vellum. A “rule” of light brown thread on the edges of the front cover with an inner rule of reddish brown thread, surrounding three stylized lily plants, expertly embroidered in a gradient of various shades of green leaves, white petals with accents of lavender, and yellow & orange stamens. The spine features a design of a prominent single lily. Gilt decorated turn-ins. All edges gilt. Some spotting and light browning to covers, with light foxing to pages.
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21) Heye, Ilse. Gedichte. Lausanne: Edwin Frankfurter, 1919. Limitation page, translated from German: “This book was printed in a unique numbered edition of 180 volumes on Dutch handmade paper, printed at A. Bovard-Giddey in Lausanne. The covers were designed by Paul Grulich, and it was bound by Th. Jirasko in Lausanne.” This volume is numbered 126 and initialed by Edwin Frankfurter. As stated in the limitation, Theophile Jirasko was responsible for the binding of the volumes from this edition done in wrappers. (The Jahrbuch der Bücherpreise of 1930 mentions that Jirasko also did the binding for Goethe’s Marienbader Elegie at the Officina Bodoni.) However, Jirasko was an art bookbinder as well, and this particular volume has been bound in full marine blue crushed morocco, featuring a striking arts & crafts centerpiece on both covers, tooled in gilt and inlaid crimson flowers. The wraps are bound in at the front and rear, and it is signed in blind on the lower front turn-in (“Th. Jirasko”). The endpapers are a dazzling combination of metallic silver, gold, blue, and pink. Top edge gilt. 55 pp. Measures approx. 6" x 9.25". Housed in a worn maroon leatherette slipcase. Very slight fading to spine–a beautiful & scarce example.
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22) Sala, George Augustus. Twice Round the Clock, or the Hours of the Day and Night in London. London: Houlston and Wright, [c. 1880]. Bound in rose morocco by Cedric Chivers (signed on the rear turn-in), with stylized grandfather clock in gilt to front cover, including vellucent inlay of clock face and cherubs done in watercolor and gilt stippling, as well as small green inlay to represent the weight at the bottom of the pendulum. Spine features a similar design in gilt, with pendulum inlay faded. Light pink marbled endpapers and gilt-ruled dentelles. 392 pp. Measures approx. 6" x 8.5". Browning to spine and light rubbing.
SOLD