[Merrymount Press] The Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer; and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church According to the Use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David. Boston: Printed [by The Merrymount Press] for the Commission, 1928. One of 500 copies printed on Kelmscott Hammer and Anvil paper by Daniel Berkeley Updike at the Merrymount Press. Printed in black and red throughout from handset Janson type. The cost of production was underwritten by J.P. Morgan, Jr. Full oxblood pigskin binding with blind-stamped lettering to front cover and spine, and floral ornaments extending from each spine band. Top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. Includes a printed letter from Lucien Moore Robinson, Custodian of the Book of Common Prayer, transmitting the book to the Western Massachusetts Diocese, with the Bishop handwritten on the letter.

Some light rubbing to the edges, primarily to the bottom edge, and some spotting to the leather. Front board slightly bowed outwards. Some offsetting to the endpapers, and slightly yellowed areas in margins. Scarcely found with no wear to the front hinge.

"[Updike] designed the book with the help of his partner John Bianchi, whose son Daniel Bianchi described it as 'probably the finest single piece of bookmaking accomplished by the Press,' and noted that 'the distinguishing features of this book, in which no ornamentation is used, reside in the carefully selected face and sizes of type, the quiet dignity of the initials, the sparkling vermilion of the rubrication, the crispness of impression, the harmony of the paper with the text, and the rich crimson binding.'" (The Yale University Library Gazette, 1999)

"For Updike it was the culmination of everything he believed in and understood, and every facet of his personality and sensibility was called upon to produce this masterpiece of print and spirit." (A Century for the Century, 2004)

Printing and the Mind of Man 173. A Century for the Century 25.