Fine Bindings

The Songs of Sappho – Miller and Robinson – Fine Production 1925

A beautiful edition published by Frank-Maurice, New York in 1925.

Longer Title … “the Songs of Sappho – Including the Recent Egyptian Discoveries – The Poems of Erinna – Greek Poems about Sappho – Ovid’s Epistle of Sappho to Phaon”. Translated by Marion Mills Miller (Editor of “The Classics – Greek and Latin”) with Greek texts prepared and annotated and literally translated in prose by David Moore Robinson, Professor in Classics, John Hopkins University.

Large octavo, 435 pages, rough cut page edges as issued. Very good near fine copy, original green boards with quarter vellum to spine with gilt titles. Top edge richly gilt. A limited edition of 750 copies. Ten full page plates.

Sappho (630BC – 570BC) was an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Sappho is best known for her poems about love and women. Most of the poetry is now lost and surviving items are mainly in fragments, except for one complete poem “Ode to Aphrodite”. Little is known of Sappho’s life, although likely from a wealthy family. Sappho was exiled to Sicily around 600BC … legend surrounds her love for the ferryman Phaon.

Sappho’s work has continued to influence writers. Beyond her poetry she is known as a symbol of love and desire between women.

From “Old Love is Best”’ …
“Whose soft footfall sets my heart a-bounding
Wilder than when the clarions are sounding;
Whose bright face hath power more to charm me
Than Lydia’s army!”

Finely bound beautiful Sappho – 1925

$120.00

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Horace – Horatii Fiacci Opera – Munro and King – Bickers Binding – 1869

A delightful copy of “Horace” illustrated by with well over 100 classical cameos or “gems” and bound in superb style by Bickers and Sons of London with their discrete stamp at the front.

Published by Bell and Dalby, London in 1869. Large octavo, with 456 pages after preliminaries, the back section of the book being a lengthy and scholarly description of the said “gems”.

The Latin text revised by Munro and the “gems” selected and detailed by King both Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge.

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65BC – 8 BC) known as “Horace” was a leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. This is a well-produced and scholarly edition and we learn in the preface that the “gems” are authentic, whilst earlier attempts to illustrate Horace have succumbed to using inappropriate “modernised” versions etc.

The Bickers binding is full red morocco, spine panelled with raised bands, gilt lines to spine and boards, marbled endpapers with gilt rolled borders internally and to board edges, all page edges richly gilt. All a trifle rubbed … a solid a special binding. The shading on the right hand (front) board is our scanner not the board!

Nice inscription on endpaper … a gift to the Rev Mayo M.A. by his “Horace” class at Fauconberg School in Beecles … the distinguished grammar school was formed by Dr Fauconberg in 1712

Best Illustrated “Horace” in Bickers Binding

$140.00

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The Strand Magazine – with an Arthur Conan Doyle First Publication – 1898

A complete volume of the Strand Magazine being January to June 1898 in very good condition in the original green leather binding with elaborate gilt design and titling to spine.

As would be expected many interesting period articles, stories and the likes .. one on Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) by Beatrice Hatch is rather special.

The “piece that cannot be resisted” is a first publication of the short story by Arthur Conan Doyle … “The Story of the Beetle-Hunter” which was later published in a collection of short stories “Round the Fire” in 1908. The story, which runs to ten pages, contains eight illustrations by Archibald S Hattrick (1864-1950).

Conan Doyle First and More in Very Good Condition.

$140.00

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Sartor Resartus – Thomas Carlyle – Bickers & Sons of Leicester Full Leather Binding

Thomas Carlyle’s first and possibly most important novel originally published in 1836 previously serialised in Fraser’s Magazine.

This edition by Chaman and Hall 1901 and in a full red polished calf binding by the famous bookbinders Bickers & Sons of Leicester. Carries the shield of posh girl’s school “Sandecotes” embossed in gilt to the front cover, a note of prize gift. The marbled end-papers are to die for, rolled gilt to board edges etc bar a foxing mark here and there a very nice copy.

Sartor Resartus means “the tailor re-tailored”. The novel purports to be on the thoughts and early life of a German philosopher Diognes Teufelsdrockh (God-born devil-dung). The structure of the book is very unusual, influences are thought to be Swift “a Tale of a Tub” and Sterne “Tristram Shandy”. For the time, it was a new kind of book being both factual and fictional, serious and satirical, speculative and historical. An unnamed Editor is struck with admiration but also confounded by Teufelsdrockh’s outlandish philosophy. A most enigmatic book which influenced many writers to come including Joyce on whose “Finnegan’s Wake” is surely modelled.

Controversial testing Sartor Resartus dressed by Bickers & Sons in red calf.

$80.00

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Memoirs of a Coxcomb – John Cleland – Numbered Limited Hand-Made Paper – 1926

A fine edition by Fortune Press, London 1926. Original quarter mottled calf over marbled papers, gilt titles. Number 389 of a limited 575 copies printed on Verge Montgolfier hand-made paper by Maurice Darantier. Very light rubbing a very good if not fine copy.

John Cleland the author of Fanny Hill, which he wrote in debtors prison. Memoirs of a Coxcomb was first published in 1751 and contains a parody of Mary Wortley Montagu who is famous for her Turkish letters (her description of nudes inspired Ingres in his famous painting of same), spurning Alexander Pope and other “love affairs”.

A witty and complex portrait of aristocratic life in the 18th century through the memoirs of our vain dandy our coxcomb, Sir William Delamore. A sophisticated examination of masculine identity in direct contrast to Fanny Hill.

Coxcomb Memoirs Proudly Presented – beautifully written.

$90.00

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Victorian Fine Binding – Galatea: A Pastoral Romance – Miguel de Cervantes.

A literal translation from the Spanish (the first) by Gordon Willoughby James Gyll. Published by Bell and Dalby, London in 1867.

Originally published in 1588 before the much celebrated Don Quixote. Under the guise of pastoral characters, the book represents and examination of love. This edition 349 pages after preliminaries finely bound in full orange morocco, inner gilt dentelle with marbled endpapers by respected London Bookbinder of the period – Jeremiah Larkins. A very fine copy. A lovely gift.

About the bookbinder

Jeremiah Larkins (1833-1907) was of Irish descent. He became a bookbinder at the age of seventeen and soon had his own business first as a partnership and then under his own name. He married Ann who was described as a book-folder so they must have met through the business. He became highly respected for the quality of his work amongst the London book elite of the Victorian era.

$160.00

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The Songs of Sappho – Miller and Robinson – Fine Production 1925

Horace – Horatii Fiacci Opera – Munro and King – Bickers Binding – 1869

The Strand Magazine – with an Arthur Conan Doyle First Publication – 1898

Sartor Resartus – Thomas Carlyle – Bickers & Sons of Leicester Full Leather Binding

Memoirs of a Coxcomb – John Cleland – Numbered Limited Hand-Made Paper – 1926

Victorian Fine Binding – Galatea: A Pastoral Romance – Miguel de Cervantes.

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