Cloth binding for Woolner’s ‘My Beautiful Lady’
Arthur Hughes
1866
Cloth binding gilt
6¾ x 4 ½ inches
This is delicate binding, probably by Hughes, is unusually simple and direct for a book of the 1860s, when cover design was characterized by elaborate patterns in gilt. Hughes’s cover is austere, prefiguring the chaste descriptions of the Beloved; it also links to the pictorial title-page, with the Lady savouring the aroma of a flower (possibly a lily).
Scan and text by Simon Cooke [Click on image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]