poetry

Number 40 of 110 copies printed for the Société des Amis des Livres, this one for Baron Roger Portalis (a founder member of this bibliophilic circle, and an eminent historian of engraving) This is an especially elegant belle-époqe edition of the Parnassian poet Leconte de Lisle’s first collection (first published in 1852) with a sequence of highly-refined illustrations by Maurice Ray. The binding is by Georges Huser (1879-1961), who had worked for binders David, Noulhac and Lemardeley before establishing himself independently as the latter’s successor in 1903.

King 579 (William Harry Rogers, King’s example in red).

King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003) 613 (by John Sleigh).

First edition of Olive Custance’s second collection (after Opals of 1897), published in the year of her elopement and marriage to Lord Alfred Douglas and containing the suite written for him, ‘The Fairy Prince’. Custance’s marriage, frowned upon by her parents, had come only a year after her supposed affair with Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris, and the Rainbows contains poems of desire from various points in the spectrum, notably ‘A Dancing Girl’ and ‘The White Witch’. Barney recounted that Custance had written the lines ‘Her face is like the faces the Dreamer sometimes meets, A face that Leonardo would have followed through the streets’ on seeing a version of Barney’s portrait [which] later appeared in ‘The White Witch’ (Pulham, ‘Tinted and Tainted Love: The Sculptural Body in Olive Custance’s Poetry’, Yearbook of English Studies, 37, 1, p. 164).
The elaborate contemporary binding is signed ‘E. Dreyfous’, the Grosvenor Square dealer in antiques, Edouard Henry Dreyfous who counted the Royal Family among his customers.

Sole edition of this entertaining almanac for 1789, aimed at young people (but presumably not children) with a delightful suite of humorous and mildly erotic plates by François-Marie-Isidore Quéverdo. Each month is given an engraving, several verses and songs with music. Among the latter is found ‘Air de la negresse’ — a three-verse song with music from (or perhaps just inspired by) Radet’s 1787 opéra-comique La Negresse. Though recorded by both Gay and Carteret we have not located any institutional copy in the usual online catalogues (WorldCat, KVK, CCFr, JISC). Carteret 866; Gay I, 112.

An attractive diminutive edition of a favourite garden book.

KingVictorian Decorated Trade Bindings 36 ( variant of this binding by Robert Dudley).

King Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 735 (Albert Warren, King’s example in blue).

King Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 361 (Red, John Leighton).

King Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 361 (John Leighton).

Cf. King Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 733 (Albert Warren, probably the same binding, but edition of Menzies, Edinburgh, 1858). 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 202 (Albert Warren). Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings (British Library & Oak Knoll, 2003).

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).

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).