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A NOTE BY WILLIAM MORRIS ON HIS AIMS IN FOUNDING THE KELMSCOTT PRESS. TOGETHER WITH A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESS BY S. C. COCKERELL, AND AN ANNOTATED LIST OF THE BOOKS PRINTED THEREAT.
(Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1898). 210 x 150 mm. (8 1/4 x 5 3/4"). 4 p.l. (including two blanks), 70 pp., [1] leaf (colophon). ONE OF 525 COPIES on paper (and 12 on vellum).
Original holland-backed blue paper boards. WOODCUT ILLUSTRATION BY EDWARD BURNE-JONES of "Pysche Borne off by Zephyrus" ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM MORRIS, elaborate borders around this and first page of text designed and cut by Morris, large decorative woodcut initials, device on last page of text, and one full-page woodcut of ornaments used in the Kelmscott edition of "Love is Enough." Printed in red and black in Golden, Troy, and Chaucer types. With errata slip laid in at title page. Front pastedown with Arts & Crafts-style bookplate of Edmund Bulkley dated 1893; a list of the Kelmscott books in E. W. Buckley's collection, listed by the number assigned to them in this book, recorded in pencil on a translucent piece of paper laid in here. Morris & Cockerell 53; Peterson A-53; Ransom 53; Tomkinson, p. 121. Some wear to lower corners, just a hint of soil to covers, otherwise a very fine copy--exceptionally fresh, clean, and bright internally.
Owned by two collectors with a special interest in Morris, this is a very pleasing copy of one of the key Kelmscott Press books, and the last one to be issued by the press. Morris tells us here about his admiration for 15th century printed books, saying that "they were always beautiful by force of the mere typography, even without the added ornament, with which many of them are so lavishly supplied." And he says that "it was the essence of [his] undertaking to produce books which it would be a pleasure to look upon as pieces of printing and arrangement of type." This is the most important contemporaneous source of comment on the founding, operation, and publications of the Kelmscott Press. Peterson quotes Newdigate, who says that this is "one of the three books that every student of English book-production ought to read." The original owner here was American private press collector Edmund Bulkley, who, according to the list laid in at the rear of this volume, owned 42 Kelmscott books. Evidently prepared after Bulkley's death, the list also marks with a "0" the books sold before 1950, and notes at the end the books (including this volume) that remained in the possession of "M A B B." (this might refer to a relation, possibly art collector M. A. B. Bulkley, who bequeathed a Pre-Raphaelite-style painting to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1996). Bulkley's distinctive bookplate, perhaps created by one of the private presses, is found in a number of press books, which when listed at auction, are in notably fine condition. In 1883, Morris & Company took out a full-page ad in the Official Catalogue of the Boston Foreign Exhibition announcing the appointment of Elliott & Bulkley of 42 East 14th Street, New York City, as U.S. agents for the sale of Morris & Co. "Decorative Manufactures," including wallpaper, fabrics, and "the celebrated Hammersmith carpets made only by Morris & Company." It is tempting to speculate that Edmund Bulkley was associated with this firm, and became aware of the Kelmscott Press via this connection with Morris & Company. Although without additional signs of ownership, our book was later sold as part of the library of Clive Wilmer (1945-2025), English poet and scholar of John Ruskin and William Morris. He wrote and lectured extensively on both men, and from 2009 to 2019 served as Master of The Guild of St. George, a charity for arts, crafts, and the rural economy founded by Ruskin in 1871. The Ruskin Society of North America presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Copies of this work appear with some regularity in the marketplace, but specimens in attractive condition are becoming increasingly difficult to find. (ST20842)
Price: $3,900.00