Tupper's Complete Poetical Works

1851

Gold-stamped paper boards

7 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches

This American edition of a very popular poet exemplifies the elaborate decoration of low-cost materials for book bindings made possible by mechanical presses. Although it makes as heavy a use of stamping as Hemans's Poetical Works by the same publisher, it uses less gold. Like the binding on this publisher's edition of Hemans, this one represents a middle-class emulation of aristocratic leather bindings [GPL].

Photograph and text by George P. Landow.

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