Cloth binding for Cowper’s ‘John Gilpin’

Laurence Housman; signed

1898

Light blue cloth, gilt

8¼ x 6 inches

This Art Nouveau binding by Housman was used as a generic cover by the Aldine Press, and is very typical of book design of the Nineties. The elegant arabesques of interlocking stems and leaves sets a lyrical tone, which could not be said to match the text. This copy is an anomalous in another sense too – the book’s illustrator is announced on the front board as H. L. Richardson, but it is illustrated by Charles Brock; clearly, the die impressing the gilt design was incorrectly prepared.

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Photograph and text by Simon Cooke