SONGS. A SELECTION FROM THE PLAYS, MASQUES, AND POEMS, WITH THE EARLIEST KNOWN SETTINGS OF CERTAIN NUMBERS.

(ERAGNY PRESS). JONSON, BEN.

(Hammersmith: Eragny Press, 1906). 211 x 138 mm. (8 1/4 x 5 3/8"). 2 p.l. (first blank), 59, [3] pp. ONE OF 175 COPIES ON PAPER and 10 copies on vellum.

Publisher's quarter gray paper over blue and green "speedwell" printed paper boards, front board with gilt lettering. Very fine frontispiece of a lute player printed in four colors, woodcut white vine border on first page of text (both of these with original tissue guards), decorative woodcut initials in red, and printer's device on final page, all designed by Lucien Pissarro and engraved by Esther Pissarro. Printed in red and black; many pages with printed music. Front pastedown with ex-libris of Asa Lindgard; book label of David & Hermione Chambers laid in at front flyleaf; front free endpaper with Chambers' pencilled acquisition note: "DJC 12 . XI . 53." Urbanelli, p. 123; Ransom, p. 263; Tomkinson, p. 65. Free endpaper at front and back with offsetting from binder's glue (as usual), isolated faint spots of foxing, but a fine copy--clean, fresh, and bright internally, and the fragile binding remarkably well preserved.

This is a typically charming volume--here presenting music from the works of a prominent Jacobean playwright--produced by an English private press noted for small, gentle volumes featuring colored wood engravings with a French flavor. Excepting only Shakespeare, Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was the most important literary figure of his age, and for the 21 years that he lived after Shakespeare's death, Jonson was the unquestioned ruler in all things literary. In 1616, he was the first playwright to publish his collected dramatic works, and in the same year, he became England's first (though unofficial) poet laureate. Nobody before or after him has ever displayed the fascinating characters of London so vividly on the stage. Operated between 1894 and World War I by Lucien and Esther Pissarro, the Eragny Press produced charming books of the highest quality but in design unlike the other major private presses at work in England. Cave says that the Eragny Press books "had a charm and freshness quite unlike anything to be found in the work of any other private press, and in the printing of colored wood engravings in particular the press excelled." It is not surprising that Cave uses as his illustration to demonstrate this assertion the frontispiece of the lute player that appears in the present book. Our volume was in the collection of Asa Lindgard (1869-1957), a Bradford department store owner and an important collector of 20th century British art. The most recent owner was the distinguished bibliophile and bibliographer David Chambers (1930-2025). A book collector from age 9, Chambers assembled a diverse library, but in the introduction to the catalogue for the sale of his collection, his daughter Susan observed, "privately printed books, printed in private homes, became his main interest/obsession." He chaired the council of the Private Libraries Association and edited its journal for many years, as well as compiling an annual list of private press books for the organization. He also founded the Cuckoo Hill Press in the late 1950s; like the Pissarros of the Eragny Press, he specialized in producing books with woodcut illustrations. (ST21217b)

Price: $1,950.00