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PROVERBS IN PORCELAIN.
(London: Henry S. King & Co., 1877). 187 x 125 mm. (7 1/2 x 5"). ix, [1], 209, [1] pp. FIRST EDITION.
Attractive brown crushed morocco by Henry Wood (stamp-signed on front turn-in), the front cover with an onlaid roundel in blue and white, gilt tooled, depicting a platter, the back cover similarly decorated with a vase; the spine with raised bands and gilt lettering, turn-ins with gilt-ruled frame, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. The spine just slightly darkened, trivial rubbing to the boards, intermittent minor foxing to the margins, otherwise a fine copy, quite clean internally, and in a very pleasant, lustrous binding.
This is a handsomely bound copy of a book by a poet of the Aesthete School, described by Day as a "genteel bureaucrat" who specialized in "the graceful insouciance of 'vers de société' rather than the 'flowers of evil'" favored by others of his cohort. Specifically, Henry Austin Dobson (1840-1921) wrote light, witty verse that reflected his fascination with the 18th century; Day notes that "he could write heroic couplets with much of Pope's conversational ability" and "could reproduce the elaborate French stanzas" of triolet, ballade, and rondeau with a finesse matched by few Englishmen. Dobson's extensive knowledge of the 18th century was so respected that DNB says "any publisher intending to reissue an eighteenth-century work went to Dobson for an introduction." "Proverbs in Porcelain" was his second published work of poetry, which DNB claims was "almost all in his best vein." Dobson’s contemporary, American Writer Thomas Bailey Aldrich, wrote of these poems in the Atlantic Monthly that Dobson was "a young English poet with special gifts, a writer of winged lyrics." Certainly the public agreed: "Proverbs in Porcelain," containing a variety of poems with Neoclassical and contemporary themes, enjoyed considerable popularity. This copy is offered in a striking binding by Henry Wood, who worked as a finisher for Zaehnsdorf for 12 years while developing the impressive technique for which he was known. In 1890, Wood went out on his own, continuing to execute bindings to a high standard that ranked with the work of Sangorski & Sutcliffe, Riviere, and his former employer. Fittingly, this binding is decorated with depictions of the porcelain objects indicated by the work's title. (ST19567-125)
Price: $475.00