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THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS.
(Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1914). 237 x 183 mm. (9 3/8 x 6 1/2"). 3 p.l., 7-155, [1] (colophon) pp., [5] leaves. ONE OF 200 COPIES on paper (and 15 copies on vellum).
Excellent very dark blue crushed morocco, gilt, by Sangorski & Sutcliffe (stamp-signed on front turn-in), covers with double gilt fillet border, central panel simply framed with four gilt fillets, four circlets at the intersection of the lines, raised bands, spine compartments ruled in gilt, two with gilt lettering, gilt-ruled turn-ins, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. Printed in red and black. Front pastedown with morocco ex-libris of Austin Smith and engraved bookplate of Mary Priscilla Smith. Tidcombe DP-34; Tomkinson, p. 58. ◆Free endpapers with the usual minor offsetting from turn-ins, a couple of trivial paper flaws to margins, but AN ESPECIALLY FINE COPY, clean, fresh, and bright inside and out.
This is a beautiful copy of the last of four Shakespeare plays to be printed by the Doves Press, a play based on the life of Roman general Caius Marcius Coriolanus, originally written around 1608. The text here is based on the 1623 First Folio, with eight pages of errata for that printing. The Doves Press was founded in 1900 by Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker to produce their ideal of the "Book Beautiful." Over the next 16 years, they produced 51 titles in which they demonstrated that printing with plain type (designed by Walker) that is well set and with good margins could produce notable work. As Cave says, the Doves Press books, "completely without ornament or illustration, . . . depended for their beauty almost entirely on the clarity of the type, the excellence of the layout, and the perfection of the presswork." After the partnership ended acrimoniously, Cobden-Sanderson threw the Walker's beautiful type into the Thames, so it could never be used by anyone else. The influence of Cobden-Sanderson's Doves Bindery is evident in the simple but elegant design executed by Douglas Cockerell's former pupils Francis Sangorski and George Sutcliffe; the binding is entirely appropriate and in beautiful condition. (ST17046c)
Price: $6,000.00