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First edition of these selections from Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe, Coleridge, Spenser, Herbert, and others. ‘The ornamental borders in this book have been printed by means of wood-blocks’. A collaborative enterprise between Cundall and the Chiswick Press it was printed in 2000 copies. ‘One-quarter share in the profits was to be paid to Joseph Cundall, but it is doubtful if there were any, since, in January 1851, forty bound copies and no less than one thousand six hundred and forty-two copies in sheets were sold to H.G. Bohn. It is a charming little volume and deserved a greater success: it is now a collector’s piece’ (McClean). McLean, Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing (2nd ed.), pp. 70-71.

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.

First edition. The frontispiece included a mounted oval collotype print reproducing an engraved portrait of John Milton McLean, Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing (2nd ed.), p. 137.