[Will Ransom | Handcraft Shop] Ave Imperatrix! A Dirge of Empire

Wilde, Oscar. Ave Imperatrix! A Dirge of Empire. The Handcraft Shop, Snohomish, WA, 1902. Limited to 150 copies, of which this is #6. Limp dark-red polished calf. Full-page black & white plate with hand-colored border. 31 pages of text (on recto only) printed within a woodcut of a tree, vines and thorns with a hand-colored and gilt capital. Additional capital to the preface and colophon. The title-page, caption to the plate and printer's device on last leaf printed in red and black. Colophon reads: "And so endeth the poem; as written by Oscar Wilde, decorated by John D. Clancy, and builded into a book by Will H. Ransom at The Handcraft Shop, Snohomish, Washington, in the autumn-tide of the year Nineteen Hundred and Two. Of an edition limited to one hundred and fifty copies, this is number 6". Some spotting to covers, and light rubbing to edges. Small brown stain to upper edge of a few early pages.