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Soft cover, 16 mo,(measuring 4 1/2 x 6 inches), in handmade paper wraps over paper, printed in red and black, and designed by the Alderbrink Press's artist and printer, Ralph Fletcher Seymour (1876-1966) in an American Arts and Crafts Style, 40 pp. First Edition. The cover has hand-lettered Gothic calligraphy above a rectangle of Morris-esque twining acanthus leaves, and is surrounded by a double banded border of floral sprigs printed in red. The border to the decorative title page, as well as the initial capitals to the poems, are also hand-colored, the former in a brass, and latter in a dark teal. Opposite each sonnet is a matching full page black and white illustration by the artist, showing a variety of flowers, (including an unexpected "mexicanised" acanthus swirl with two corn cobs (!), albeit depicted in beautiful, bold lines. Private Press bibliographer Will Ransom described Seymour's process thus: "Being a designer of marked ability, he approached books from that angle, and the earliest volumes were entirely hand-lettered and printed from zinc plates." **The subject of the poem is a sort of festshrift for Frances Fearn, the charitable emissary promoting the good works for the blind, a special cause of Elizabeth of Weid [also known as Carmen Silva], the first Queen of Romania, from 1881. The four sonnets were composed by the Dundee, Scotland-born poet and religious author, the Rev. William Norman Guthrie. CONDITION: Very Good Plus, The printed illustrated cover over card is darkened and with a light tideline at upper left of cover. Rear wrap is somewhat soiled. One transitional page (the half-title of Sonnet III) is mirror soiled at the fore edges. But none of this detracts from the otherwise beautifully clean, bright text and art within. A very scarce title. OCLC 6316373. Ransom, Alderbrink No. 20.
Ref: CHAP 9015
$275.00