Cloth binding for ‘The Wind Among the Reeds’

Althea Gyles

1899–1900

Cloth binding

8 x 5 ¼ inches

In this binding for Yeats’s The Wind Among the Reeds Gyles focuses on the poet’s natural imagery, but treats the reeds in an abstract way. Though designed at the turn of the century in the manner of Art Nouveau, the composition prefigures Art Deco and perhaps even the bold simplifications of British modernism of the 1930s and 40s. The material quality of the cover is quite poor, with surviving copies coming apart at the backstrip, with loss of gilt on the design. It is one of the rarest of late Victorian bindings.

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Photograph and text by Simon Cooke

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