The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In Seven Parts.

(Binding.) (Vale Press.) COLERIDGE (Samuel Taylor)

Publication details: [Printed at the Ballantyne Press for Messrs Hacon & Rickets at the Sign of the Dial,]1899,

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$2,181.26

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Stock number: 77096

Bookseller Notes

An attractive contemporary binding by a skilled but relatively obscure practitioner, from Bolton - though with some training (his 1938 obituary in a trade journal tells us) in America and London. Richard S.B. Watson was head of the bookbinding firm Watson & Co., but executed craft bindings of this type as a hobby, and his skill is manifest. His work was singled out, alongside that of Douglas Cockerell, as being 'worthy of all praise' in the Art Journal's review of an exhibition of Modern Artistic Bookbindings at the Goupil Gallery in London in 1898 - where he had also selected a Vale Press book, namely Drayton's 'Nimphidia and the Muses Elizium'.Here he executes a design that harmonises well with Ricketts' decorations internally, without being imitative; the use of shells and other decorative elements of his tooling have the suggestion of marine life appropriate to the text.

Description

[ONE OF 210 COPIES] (from an edition of 220 copies) printed in black and red on Arnold handmade paper using the Vale types, the full wood-engraved border and the large initial letters used throughout designed by Charles Ricketts, a couple of very faint spots to margin of half-title and colophon, pp. 45, crown 8vo, contemporary binding of green morocco (signed 'R.S.B. Watson Fecit' on the front turn-in, see below), both boards with an elaborate gilt-tooled design, the backstrip lettered and decorated in gilt between five raised bands, the backstrip a little darkened and with light rubbing to joints and at tips, a couple of small and very faint scuffs to upper board, bottom corners a little pushed, a.e.g., the turn-ins with a design tooled in gilt, attractive pink and green marbled endpapers, very good

Bibliography: (Watry B23)

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