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5 ASHBEE, C. R. American Sheaves & English Seed Corn: Being a Series of Addresses Mainly Delivered in the United States, 1900– 1901. London: Essex House Press, 1901 SPECIALLY BOUND BY HIS BINDERY TO A DESIGN POSSIBLY BY ANNIE POWER First edition, number 7 of 300 copies, printing the text of eight lectures or addresses originally delivered by Charles Ashbee on behalf of the National Trust as part of his endeavours to make “the work and objects of the society known in the United States”. Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft was founded in 1888 at Essex House in the Mile End Road, in the East End of London. The Essex House Press was added to Ashbee’s enterprise when William Morris’s Kelmscott Press closed and Ashbee took over its
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presses and some of the staff. The Kelmscott fonts were not available and Ashbee therefore designed his own, in which he “sought to follow upon the lines laid down by Morris”. This book is printed in his Endeavour type. The Guild of Handicraft also operated a bindery. Early designs were by Douglas Cockerell and, later, Annie Power. Marianne Tidcombe in Women Bookbinders notes that the bindings “designed by Annie Power are signed with a monogram of her initials, along with the Guild signature, a ‘pink’ (dianthus) between the letters GH”. The binding here contains the pink and “GH”, but does not have Power’s initials. Ashbee’s own bibliography of the press records that the standard binding was vellum and that “a few” copies were bound by Miss Power and Edgar Green.
Octavo. Contemporary tan crushed morocco by the Guild of Handicraft, lettering to compartments in gilt, raised bands, leaf design to covers in blind, green endpapers, gilt edges. Text printed in red and black. Nine woodcut initials with press device before colophon. Extremities rubbed and corners slightly bumped, some offsetting to free endpapers, occasional light foxing to some blank leaves, otherwise an attractive and very good copy. ¶ Ashbee, A Bibliography of The Essex House Press , p. 13; Ransom 21. £1,500 [150350] 6 AUSTEN, Jane. Sense and Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice; Emma; Mansfield Park; Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. London: Richard Bentley, 1833
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SPRING 2022
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