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First edition. One of the most spectacular fruits of nineteenth-century Medievalism, with its elaborate chromolithograph interpretations of illuminated manuscripts, many with gold and silver inks. The text volume additionally contains a sequence of original photographic reproductions of prints by Wierix. Issued as a series of 70 individual numbers, the pagination of the plate volumes is very erratic, with numerous additional plates outside the main sequence and with some leaves having plates on both sides, others on just one. The appendix provides an historical and bibliographical key to the plates, listing manuscripts in mainly French and Italian libraries. Curmer’s output and importance is discussed at length by Isabelle Saint-Martin, ‘Rêve médiéval et invention contemporaine; variations sur l’enluminure en France au XIXe siècle’ in Coomans and De Mayer, eds, The Revival of Medieval Illumination, 2007.

First edition, and the first appearance of anything by Hoccleve in print: ‘La Male Regle de T. Hoccleve’, and five ballads from a manuscript belonging to the editor, the bibliophile George Mason, and now at the Huntington Library. It is dedicated to ‘that intelligent friend of literature’ and founder member of the Roxburghe Club, Lord Spencer. Jackson, p. 211.