Owned by a Great British Actor, and with His Remarkably Ingenious and Unusually Informative Bookplate

RELIGIO MEDICI, URN BURIAL, CHRISTIAN MORALS, AND OTHER ESSAYS.

(VALE PRESS). BROWNE, SIR THOMAS.

(London: Vale Press, 1902). 300 x 203 mm. (11 3/4 x 8"). cxcviii pp, [1] leaf (colophon). ONE OF 310 COPIES on paper (and 10 on vellum).

Publisher's holland-backed blue paper boards, upper cover and flat spine with printed paper labels, untrimmed edges. Woodcut vine border by C. S. Ricketts on first text page. Front pastedown with the engraved ex-libris of E. S. Willard (see below). Van Capelleveen A 73a; Tomkinson, p.170. Cloth separated along most of the rear joint (though the volume perfectly tight), corners exposed, boards a bit sunned, spine label somewhat browned and slightly chipped; some foxing in lower margin (not dark, but extensive on about a dozen leaves), other trivial defects, but a perfectly good inexpensive copy of a book typically found in poor condition.

This stately printing of one of Browne's most celebrated and enduring writings is perhaps the most attractive major work Ricketts attempted at the Vale Press. The Oxford Companion describes "Religio Medici" as "a confession of Christian faith (qualified by an eclectic and generally skeptical attitude), and a collection of opinions on a vast number of subjects more or less connected with religion, expressed with a wealth of fancy and wide erudition." Readers have always been fascinated by the book's style, by the mind that both style and contents reveal, and by the author's combination of detachment from the world and curiosity about its smallest physical objects. Browne says in his preface that the book was written for his "private exercise and satisfaction," but he was not repelled by its unauthorized publication in 1642, nor did he discourage its republication a year later. It is accompanied here by other pieces, including "Hydriotaphia: Urn Burial," one of the first archaeological monographs in English. Physician and writer Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) was one of the great 17th century stylists of English prose, and one of the most innovative thinkers of his time. The Vale Press books, which Cave says were "far truer to the spirit of fifteenth-century printing than Kelmscott work," included nearly 50 titles issued during the eight-year life of the press, and both its impressive output and considerable artistic success can be attributed to the fact that Ricketts, who was remarkably skilled as a designer, painter, and illustrator, was in control of every facet of the operation. The provenance is roundly resonant with the subject matter of the book. Browne’s "Religio Medici" is a book by a doctor about religion, and this copy was owned by the great British actor Edward Smith Willard (1853-1915), who notably played both medical and spiritual figures on stage. He took, for instance, the lead role of Cardinal Medici in Louis N. Parker’s drama "The Cardinal," and the role of the doctor in "The Physician" by Henry Arthur Jones. Willard is in fact depicted as Cardinal Medici in full robes in the large portrait at the center of his bookplate, and the spine titles of the two aforementioned works by Parker and Jones, among others, can be seen on the bookshelves that surround the portrait in the engraving. This is a remarkably ingenious and unusually informative bookplate. . (ST20234-04)

Price: $500.00