![[DOVES BINDING-KELMSCOTT PRESS] The Poems of John Keats](/sites/default/files/styles/auction_slider/public/images/lots/2015-04-15/1071146.jpg?itok=b60kpyqW)
Lot Details
Lot 334
[DOVES BINDING-KELMSCOTT PRESS] The Poems of John Keats.
. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1894. One of 300 copies. Full olive green morocco by the Doves Bindery, signed on the rear turn-in "The Doves Bindery/18-CS-96", the upper and lower covers richly tooled (to quote Marianne Tidcombe) "with an all-over gougework arabesque, with leaves [E5-8], gougework convolvulus flowers, tool [L3] and large and small dots, with gougework border panels and some other areas dotted-in; the back panels with some of the same tools used on the covers." The spine is in six compartments, lettered in the second and dated at the foot, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. It is housed in a dark green felt lined case of thin green card, with the remains of tissue; while we do not know of any extant Doves Bindery cases, this seems a possible candidate. 8 x 5 1/4 inches (13.5 x 20 cm); [iv], 384, [2] pp., with the two-page opening spread by Morris, printed in red and black in the Golden typeface. Minute wear to extremities, the spine minimally faded towards brown, but in all a very well preserved example of a Doves binding. Case defective.
This appears, based on tool comparison, to be Tidcombe's binding 264, pattern 433, book 890 (p. 139). Though the Doves Press bound a number of copies of the Kelmscott Keats, the last copy we can trace at auction was the Saks copy, sold 1983, and in general Kelmscott books bound at the Doves Bindery have become quite rare; most are now in major private collections. Tidcombe p. 139 for the binding; Peterson A24 for the book.
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