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HESPERIDES OR WORKS BOTH HUMAN AND DIVINE, TOGETHER WITH HIS NOBLE NUMBERS OR HIS PIOUS PIECES.
(London: George Newnes Ltd., [1903]). 163 x 96 mm. (6 3/8 x 3 3/4"). Two volumes.
VERY PRETTY SCARLET CRUSHED MOROCCO BY MORRELL (stamp-signed on front turn-in), covers gilt in a "Scottish Wheel" design with very intricate filigree "wheel" at center and similar fan-shaped cornerpieces, raised bands, spines gilt in compartments with delicately tooled frames and scallop shell design at center, gilt titling, turn-ins with frame of decorative rolls and floral garlands, gray-green watered silk endleaves, all edges gilt. With illustrated title pages in each volume and 26 line drawings (reproduced by photolithography and photogravure) by Robert Savage, as called for. Part of "The Caxton Series." ◆Spines slightly (but uniformly) darkened, half a dozen tiny dark dots to boards, a hint of rubbing to joints and extremities, but still an extremely pleasing copy, pristine internally, and in lustrous bindings.
Day praises the verse of "the greatest of the Cavalier poets" for its "charming daintiness" and "consummately beautiful artifice," words that could also describe the meticulously executed bindings here by Morrell. A friend and follower of Ben Jonson, Herrick (1591-1674) showed a dazzling display of technical versatility in his poetry, employing almost every stanzaic and verse form in English. In his "Hesperides," a collection of more than 1,100 poems (most of which is printed here), he expounds a hedonistic philosophy full of pagan raptures and wistful sorrow set in a joyous English landscape, and he writes with sensuous daintiness and polished artifice about bowers and blossoms without ever stopping to consider subjects of great profundity. Herrick's other important collection, "Noble Numbers" (represented here in the second volume), consists of some 270 religious poems that express in equally flawless verse the poet's satisfaction at the steady benignity of an uncomplicated deity. In her "Modern Bookbindings" of 1906, Prideaux says that Morrell at that time had a very large business that supplied "all the booksellers with bindings designed by his men," bindings that were "remarkable for their variety and merit." The present volumes are particularly pleasing, with decoration reminiscent of the so-called "Wheel" bindings originally produced in Scotland in the 18th century. (ST15388)
Price: $950.00