[Roycroft | Inscribed by W.W. Denslow to George H. Daniels] Essays of Elia

Lamb, Charles. Essays of Elia. East Aurora, NY: The Roycrofters, 1899. Limited to 970 copies, of which this is copy #66. Signed in Elbert Hubbard's name on the limitation page. Body copy set in Old Style Antique. Printed in two colors on Kelmscott handmade paper with initial letters hand drawn. An inscription page to George H. Daniels has been tipped in, decorated in watercolors, and signed by W.W. Denslow with his characteristic seahorse. 

Bound in full suede with patterned silk endpapers, with a cover design by W. W. Denslow. Measures approx. 5.75" x 8.5". Some rubbing and minor fading to covers. Wear & some tearing to silk pastedowns. Free endpapers have been reattached to text block.

"[A Message to Garcia], which had been written as filler in less than an hour, caught the attention of George H. Daniels, who was Passenger Agent of Cornelius Vanderbilt's New York Central Railroad. Daniels telegraphed Hubbard requesting 100,000 copies of the essay in pamphlet form. Hubbard's presses were too small to fill Daniels' order, and after printing three smaller editions, Hubbard gave Daniels and the New York Central permission to print it themselves. ... Without George H. Daniels' intercession, "A Message to Garcia" might well have remained buried, untitled and unmourned, in the columns of The Philistine" ("A Message to Garcia": The Subsidized Hero, Zanger).