[ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL AND FAMILY] — ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH | Poems...with a Memoir. Macmillan and Co., Cambridge and London, 1862

The Property of a Gentleman

[ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL AND FAMILY] — ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

Poems...with a Memoir. Macmillan and Co., Cambridge and London, 1862

8vo (4 1/8 x 6 3/4 in.; 105 x 172 mm). Half-title; minor toning. Original textured brick red cloth, bound by Burn, upper board ruled in black and gilt with Macmillan device in gilt, lower board ruled in blind, spine gilt lettered, front free endpaper inscribed by William Michael Rossetti; rubbing to extremities, spine sunned, some soiling. In custom quarter burgundy cloth over marbled board clamshell case.   

First edition, pre-publication trial binding, Dante Gabriel Rossetti's copy 

The present copy is apparently the only issued in red cloth with ‘5’ at the foot of the spine (Scott).  Inscribed to Olivia Rossetti on the front free endpaper, it is noted that the volume was a gift from her father, William Michael, and used by her uncle, Dante Gabriel. Clough and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were contemporaries, and fell on different sides of the Oxford Movement. Clough and fellow poet Matthew Arnold remained skeptical of the teachings of John Henry Newman, while the Rossettis, Sydney Dobell, and others were compelled by them.

Olivia and Helen Rossetti, which still relatively young girls, began publishing an anarchist journal, The Torch, in the basement of their family home. Despite their ages, The Torch came to serve as the nucleus of a prominent anarchist salon, which included Peter Kropotkin and Sergei Kravchinski.

A wonderful association copy

REFERENCE

Scott, “Some Uncollected Authors XLVII – Arthur Hugh Clough,” The Book Collector, Winter 1974, p. 530

PROVENANCE

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (William Michael Rossetti's inscription to front free endapaper) — Olivia Rossetti (William Michael Rossetti's inscription to front free endpaper) — William Michael Rossetti (his inscription to front free endapaper) — Simon Nowell-Smith and Judith Adams Nowell-Smith (book labels to front pastedown)