- 114
Chaucer, Geoffrey.
Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 GBP
Log in to view results
bidding is closed
Description
- The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer now newly imprinted [edited by F.S. Ellis]. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1896
- Paper
folio, limited to 438 copies of which this is one of 425 on paper, printed in red and black, 87 wood-engraved illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones, ornamental woodcut title, borders and initials, original decorative white pigskin tooled in blind (signed "The Doves Bindery 1897" on lower fixed endpaper), silver and leather clasps, slipcase, very slightly rubbed at extremities
Provenance
Max Kirdorf (bookplate); A. Edward Newton (bookplate; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 15 May 1941, lot 540); William E. Self (bookplate)
Literature
Peterson A40; Kelmscott Chaucer: A Census (2011) 3.151 (unlocated copy)
Catalogue Note
The masterpiece of the Kelmscott Press: an outstanding example of typography and book production.
This copy is one of 48 copies specially bound at the Doves Bindery to a design by William Morris (see William S. Peterson, A Bibliography of The Kelmscott Press, Oxford, 1984, p.106). Marianne Tidcombe has suggested that this figure is "presumably... the number of bindings commissioned when the books were ordered... more than a few copies were bound after Douglas Cockerell left the bindery [in November 1897]" (Tidcombe, The Doves Bindery, London, 1991, p.51). Given that this copy is stamped by the bindery in 1896 it comprises one of the original bindings at the time of production.