The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach commonly called Ecclesiasticus

Beschreibung:

29x20cm, 182pp. With hand-drawn initials by Graily Hewitt and his assistants in green and blue. One of 328 (353) copies on Batchelor handmade paper specially made for the press with the 'bugle' watermark, Subiaco type printed in black and red, bound in full limp orange-stained vellum signed in gilt to the rear lower turn-in 'BOUND BY W H SMITH & SON LTD.', gilt title to backstrip, four orange silk ribbon ties, in the original slipcase of orange/brown marbled paper over board, postcard to Ernest F Hill from St John Hornby in his hand dated 3 March 1933 acknowledging the order of the book laid-in. We are delighted to be able to offer this exceptional example of Private Press royalty, complete with its accompanying Hornby autograph postcard signed. At this point it is almost obligatory to roll out the two relevant quotations, surely the greatest gifts to book dealers' blurbs ever written: '. in my humble judgement it is one of the most satisfactory of the books of the Press' (St John Hornby himself) and 'Booksellers continually declare the Ashendene Ecclesiasticus to be the finest book from the private presses - and there is good ground for this opinion' (Colin Franklin). It represents a perfect balance between the mighty folios and the smaller-scale books, and is undoubtedly a jewel epitomising Hornby's other famous comment that his choice tended to fall upon books 'which gave scope for a certain gaiety of treatment in the use of coloured initials and chapter headings'. Hewitt's copious hand-drawn initials were the first to appear from the Press since the Lucretius of 1913, having after that been passed over in favour of printed reproductions of his (and Eric Gill's) calligraphy in order to reduce the enormous labour intensity of hand-lettering an entire edition. Ernest F Hill (1873 - 1960) was a Birmingham-based artist associated with the Newlyn school, and at one time Headmaster of the Bournville Art School based at Ruskin Hall, to which the postcard is addressed. In common with most stained vellum bindings, the Ecclesiasticus has a marked propensity for fading especially to the backstrip. In mild cases this is not always easy to detect due to the different angles of the light, but a giveaway is often the half-moon shape slipcase thumb notches, which usually create their own small fade-marks to the boards. No such problems with this copy however - it is beyond doubt the best we have seen to the point of feeling almost like a modern facsimile (which it certainly is not). Fine: the vellum completely even in tone with no hint of fading anywhere, minute whitening spots to the tips of the corners (quite possibly as issued), all four ties unfaded and unfrayed, no markings or imperfections whatsoever to the interior, in a Near Fine (slight spots of wear to the corners and a thin line of abrasion to the foot paper) original slipcase. Hornby XXXVIII. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers W2337

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