Some old French and English Ballads
Hammersmith: Eragny Press, 1905. Limited Edition. 8vo; 8 1/8 x 5 1/4 inches (208 x 133 mm); 60, (2) pp., printed on Arches hand-made paper in red and black; frontispiece in 5 colors by Lucien Pissarro, and colophon also by him. Paper covered boards with decorative Winter Jasmine paper, and moss green spine, with gilt lettering; manuscript title and "Eragny Press" on backstrip. Spine ends+ bumped and free endpapers browned as usual; a few spots of foxing but overall clean and unmarked. With error in printing publication date 1905 as MCCCCMV.
Pictorial bookplate of R. T. Gibbon pasted inside front cover.
One of 200 copies on paper (plus 8 on vellum).
With loosely inserted (slightly browned) manuscript letter by the secretary of Mr. W.M. Voynich, addressed to "Mr. Roberts", asking him if he can mention "this little known press in the Times. It has sometimes been noticed in the Athenaeum, but is not nearly as well known as it deserves to be from the quality of the work."
[Tomkinson p. 65, no. 22; Steele p. 40; Ransom p. 263, no. 21].
A scarce and beautifully designed production of the Eragny Press, bringing together twenty French and English ballads representative of the popular poetry of their respective countries. The music type was designed especially for the volume, drawing on sixteenth-century models, while Lucien Pissarro’s five-color frontispiece and the decorative Winter Jasmine paper boards exemplify the Press’s Arts and Crafts ideal of the book as a unified work of art.
Of particular interest is the accompanying letter from the secretary of noted antiquarian bookseller W. M. Voynich, appealing for coverage of the Press in The Times and praising the quality of its work. This contemporary effort to bring wider recognition to the Eragny Press adds a revealing historical dimension to an already desirable limited edition.
Condition: Fine.
Item number: 2239
Price: $3,000.00
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