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King 746 (by Albert Warren). Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

Not in King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

Not in King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

Not in King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

Not in King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

King 703, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

Not in King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

Not in King,Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003) 549 (William Ralston).

King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003) 472 (John Leighton).

Not in King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

First edition. A splendid Victorian gift book with wood engravings by the Dalziel brothers and a striking Celtic binding design. ‘This unsigned cloth binding is one of the most elaborate designs of the period. The calligraphic writing recalls Celtic models, although it also refers to the Viking art of the north-east of England. Buchanan’s glum poetry bears little relation to the splendour of the binding, which acts as a hard sell for the book’s contents. To maximize sales, the binding was issued in several colours’ (Simon Cooke, Victorian Web). Not in King Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003) (a surprising omission for one of the most striking designs of the period).

King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003) 486

With a delightful contemporary heart-shaped ex libris belonging to a young girl (probably the bookplate of Marie Josephe Briot, later Bartoulot of Belfond, Franche-Comté), d. 1840) A rare Vesoul imprint of a popular prayer book first published in 1681 and reprinted widely into the nineteenth century. The printer Poirson is not listed in the Répertoire d’imprimeurs/libraires (which lists a single Vesoul printer, Jean-Claude Bogillot, 168.-1760) though the CCFr does list a handful of ephemeral Poirson imprints of the 1790s.

A charming book-form trinket box, a ‘blook’ of unknown manufacture, but with other examples known to have been marketed in London in the late nineteenth-century. The monogram reads ‘M.S.’ and the reference is probably to Mary Queen of Scots, given the all-over thistle pattern. Mary was executed in 1587 and so it is possible that these boxes were in some way marketed at the time of the three-hundredth anniversary.

A diminutive Geneva psalter in green vellum. The French text is Bèze and Marot’s rhymed version first published in 1562 in which the 150 psalms were set to 124 melodies. Worldcat locates the Geneva copy only of this edition.

First edition of the first of Joseph Cundall’s illuminated gift books, with superb decoration by John Brandard printed in chromolithography. ‘The borders in the book were copied from Harleian MS 2936 and MS 3469, Royal MS.19.C.3 and 19.C.8, the DeCroy MS, and Henry VIII’s Missal, all in the British Library; also used was a Book of Hours in the possession of the publisher. The miniature paintings are from Harleian MS. 2877’ (Claire McKendrick). Cundall (printer, publisher and photographer) is also known as the publisher of the first commercially printed Christmas card (in an edition of 1000 copies) in December 1843 (the same month as Dickens’s A Christmas Carol). He later produced some of the most handsome illustrated books of the 1850s and 1860s, including the ‘Home Treasury’ series of children’s books. McLean, Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing (2nd ed.) pp. 90-1.

A privately-published fairy tale by a young girl, of which we can find no copy in any public collection, nor any obvious trace of the work or its author elsewhere. The book is printed on a handsome glazed paper and incorporates three illustrations, presumably the work of the author. It was almost certainly her who also decorated the smooth calf binding with a whimsical design depicting an owl in a tree by moonlight. The printed dedication is to ‘ma chère petite Cousine Renée’, with this copy of what was presumably a very small edition inscribed to the author’s mother.

First edition in book form, printed for private circulation and exceptionally rare. This copy bound in contemporary blue morocco with a rare additional engraved autoportrait by the author (a plate known in a handful of copies and in no other copy of Point de Lendemain).
Point de Lendemain is one of the great erotic classics of French literature. One summer night, a married woman initiates an encounter with a young ingénu ― and so begins a sophisticated and nuanced story of mutual seduction. ‘In merely thirty or so pages, the erotic conte [tale] Point de lendemain … captures the libertine essence of the French eighteenth century. It is often read, with a fondness not far from nostalgia, as a vignette for a certain idea of libertinage. With Point de lendemain, Denon celebrates the subtle seductions and the intense voluptés of vicomtes and marquises, set in rococo landscapes à la Watteau or in lavish interiors worthy of Du Barry. Point de lendemain is as graceful as a painting by Fragonard …’ (Marine Ganofsky).
This 1812 text has been reprinted many times, usually with plates making explicit what is so subtly left implicit in the original. In its first incarnation the tale appeared in an issue of the Mélanges littéraires ou Journal des dames in 1777 — its authorship concealed under the initials ‘M.D.G.O.D.R.’ — but Denon later revised and republished anonymously in this definitive edition of 1812, the version in which it is known today. It was printed in very small numbers (perhaps just 25 copies) and privately distributed. Copies are highly prized, both in private and public collections and we find just 4 copies in public collections worldwide: the Bibliothèque nationale copy only is listed in the Catalogue collectif de France, while OCLC/Worldcat lists American copies at Yale and the University of California, Berkeley only. There is also a copy in the Bodleian Library. L’Enfer de la Bibliotheque 57; Brunet II, 599; Diesbach-Soultrait 40; Monglond IX, 1167 (the two copies listed, including that of the Reserve, do not contain a plate). Marine Ganofsky, Point de Lendemain (Literary Encyclopedia, University of Saint Andrews, online).

An eighteenth-century homemade binding of a portion of a popular literary and satirical miscellany, a reminder that not all reading was from perfect copies. The New Foundling Hospital for Wit appeared from 1768-7) and was a vehicle for John Wilkes and his radical bookseller John Almon, each issue audacious satirical engravings. This one includes, as a frontispiece, ‘A Citizen of the World searching for a Wise Prince’ in which blindfolded man walks an empty street carrying a lantern and wearing a long, furred civic gown. On a sign board overhead is a portrait of Augusta, Princess Dowager of Wales and a jackboot, the emblem of the Earl of Bute. Below is a quote from Shakespeare: ‘Who says ‘Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords (Romeo and Juliet).

Among the various verses we find Richard Berenger’s ‘On the Birth-Day of Shakespeare’ originally included in The World.