paper copies were issued in 150 (Dibdin and Brunet) or 250 (Lowndes) copies” (Windle & Pippin). Quarto (235 × 188 mm). Mid-19th-century brown morocco by White of Pall Mall (active 1830–57), red morocco label, gilt in compartments, elaborate gilt frame to covers, gilt turn- ins, light yellow endpapers, gilt edges. Engraved portrait frontispiece, illustration of More and his family and 11 woodcuts (5 headpieces and 6 to the text); extra-illustrated with 50 additional engravings. Armorial bookplate of Laurence Currie (1867–1934), insurance broker and railroad executive; he added to a collection of books and art begun by his grandfather Raikes Currie and father Bertram Wodehouse Currie; leather book label of bookseller and noted collector William Foyle (1885–1963). Foyle booklabel offset, contents with some light foxing, else a fine copy. ¶ Jackson 13; Lowndes, p. 1607; Windle & Pippin A9a. £7,500 [156950] 117 MORRIS, Jan, as James Morris. Coronation Everest. London: Faber & Faber, 1958 First edition of this uncommon account of the first successful ascent of Mount Everest and one of the great scoops, signed by Morris on the title page, and with the ownership inscription of CIA operative and New York Times reporter Kennett Love on the front free endpaper. Morris (1926–2020) was the only journalist to accompany the 1953 British Expedition on their ascent of Everest, which famously saw Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay achieve a new first in exploration and human endurance – the first successful summit,
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achieved on Friday, 29 May 1953. Working for The Times , who sponsored the ascent, Morris was given the role of official correspondent and, despite never having climbed a mountain before, climbed to Camp 4, a height of 26,000 feet, the final camp for those attempting the summit. Morris received the news of Hillary and Tenzing’s achievement in the early afternoon of 30 May and had to scramble down an ice field at dusk to get news to a runner at Base Camp, who then relayed the message to London via the British Embassy in Kathmandu, all the while using an elaborate system of prearranged codes to prevent the story being leaked before the Queen’s Coronation. The news of the achievement is generally regarded as one of the finest scoops in British journalistic history. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Photographic frontispiece of author, 7 black and white photographs, 3 maps. Slightly rubbed jacket with a few nicks and chips, particularly at spine ends. A very good copy, bright and square. £850 [156425] 118 MORRIS, William. Architecture and History, and Westminster Abbey. London: Longmans & Co., 1900 in an arts and crafts binding First edition, later impression, printed three months after the first, this copy in a handsome arts and crafts
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the copy of an early exponent of art deco First Kelmscott edition, one of 500 paper copies. The story of Amis and Amile is an old French romance, based on a widespread legend of friendship and sacrifice. This copy is from the library of notable American philanthropist and collector Templeton Crocker (1884–1948), with his book label on the front pastedown. His San Francisco home was one of the earliest examples of art deco interior design in the United States, declared by Vogue to be “perhaps the most beautiful apartment in the world” in 1921. Sextodecimo. Original linen-backed blue paper boards, front cover lettered in black, edges untrimmed. Printed in Chaucer type. Woodcut borders to title page, 3- and 6-line initials; shoulder notes and colophon in red. Spine a touch foxed, trivial marks to front cover, rear cover a touch bowed. A near-fine copy. ¶ Peterson A23. Mary Ashe Miller, “A Twentieth Century Apartment”, Vogue, 3 August 1929; Anna Vaninskaya, William Morris and the Idea of Community: Romance, History and Propaganda, 1880–1914 , 2010. £2,500 [159516]
binding by Taunton and Evans. William Morris gave these lectures before the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings on July 1884 and July 1893. Ethel Taunton was a student of the London bookbinder Douglas Cockerell for six months before returning to her home of Tadworth, where she worked for a year and a half, “binding for friends and booksellers, and teaching one pupil” (Tidcombe, p. 169). She later returned to London to set up her own workshop in Kensington. Octavo (214 × 144 mm). Finely bound by Taunton & Evans in full blue morocco, raised bands on spine, compartments tooled in gilt with brown onlay, covers with gilt-tooled borders of leaves and brown onlay between gilt rules, front cover lettered in gilt, turn-ins ruled in gilt, brownish-grey endpapers, edges gilt and untrimmed. Extremities lightly sunned, corners just bumped, trivial foxing to contents. A near-fine copy.¶ Marianne Tidcombe, Women Bookbinders, 1880–1920 , 1996. £2,500 [159723] 119 MORRIS, William (trans.) Of the Friendship of Amis and Amile. Hammersmith: at the Kelmscott Press, 1894
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116 MORE, Sir Thomas. A most pleasant, fruitful, and witty Work, of the best State of a Public Weal, and of the new Isle called Utopia. London: William Bulmer, at the Shakespeare Press, for William Miller, 1808 a desirable edition, attractively printed and bound First Dibdin edition, large-paper copy, splendidly bound, and abundantly extra-illustrated. First published in 1516, Utopia sets out an ideal political society, a representative democracy governed by philosophically- minded magistrates. The work was written before More’s rise to the heart of English and international politics, a world far removed from his imaginary island. The 50 extra illustrations comprise portraits of More and his contemporaries after F. Bartolozzi,
Holbein, W. Marshall, Lombart, and others, alongside views. The engravings date from the 18th to early 19th centuries, including a series of 16 engravings by Frans van Bleyswyck (1671–1746). In his Reminiscences , Dibdin praised examples where his works were extra- illustrated, and notes that he himself extra-illustrated a copy of this work: “I once received an urgent and unlimited request to illustrate one [of the large-paper copies], by the insertion of every portrait mentioned in the fourth section of my Introduction. I did so. The copy was bound by Faulkner in a splendid green morocco surtout, and was sold, on the death of its amiable and generous owner, for some threescore guineas, according to received instructions” (1836, p. 27 0n). Dibdin’s edition uses the text of the first Robinson translation of 1551, and includes a bibliography of the early editions. The large paper issue in a single quarto volume, and an octavo edition in two volumes were printed and issued apparently simultaneously. “Large-
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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