The Canterbury Tales. by CHAUCER, Geoffrey.

The Canterbury Tales. by CHAUCER, Geoffrey. < >
  • Another image of The Canterbury Tales. by CHAUCER, Geoffrey.
  • Another image of The Canterbury Tales. by CHAUCER, Geoffrey.
  • Another image of The Canterbury Tales. by CHAUCER, Geoffrey.

~ The Canterbury Tales. Waltham Saint Lawrence, Golden Cockerel Press, 1929-1931.

4 volumes, small folio (310 × 190 mm), pp. [4], 150, [2]; [4], 188, [2]; [4], 196, [2]; [4], 218, [4]. Woodcut ornaments by Eric Gill, including four full-page illustrations, printed in Caslon with black, red, and blue ink on Kelmscott hand-made paper. Original quarter goatskin by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, spine lettered in gilt, patterned paper boards, top edge gilt, others uncut. Spines slightly faded and rubbed, corners very slightly bumped. Bookplate of W. and P. J. Kupfer.

Number 381 of 485 copies on paper (there were also 15 on vellum). Along with Troilus and Criseyde and The Four Gospels, The Canterbury Tales is one of the high points of the Golden Cockerel Press. It perhaps stands above above all in Gill’s masterful designs, forming, as Colin Franklin pointed out an integral part of the book’s success — ‘not quite illustration but far transcending decoration’. ‘The balance of text and illustration goes further than typography... Most of the borders are leaf and stem, but among the leaves, hiding or beckoning, climbing or leaning out, are girls and men, kings and boys, priests and nuns who take part or seem to be commenting on the stories. A young man is whistling across the page, two fingers at his mouth, to a girl; Chaucer himself waves to a little god of love facing across his own poem; a sad lover looks over to Christ crucifies; Pan blows pipes and a naked girl, hearing him, prepares to climb her tree; a nineteen-twentyish girl climbs up, and a sad young bearded man looking like Robert Gibbings sits, supporting the whole tree’s weight, opposite; Chaucer is writing with confidence under the leaves, taking it down by dictation from the naughty spirit looking down and over the lines. So the pattern continues, affectionate and cheeky, erotic, enjoyable and relevant, decorative and explanatory, a balance of taste and eye’ (Franklin). Franklin, The Private Presses, 137-144.

Print this page View basket Price: £8,500.00