[Rarebooks] fs: C.R. Ashbee & Guild of Handicraft (1908)

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

Ashbee, C.R. "CRAFTSMANSHIP IN COMPETITIVE INDUSTRY. Being a Record of the 
Workshops of the Guild of Handicraft, and some deductions from their 
twenty-one years' experience"

London; Essex House Press: (1908).

One is always left, when discussing Charles Robert Ashbee's writings, with 
the problem of how fully to disclose the fact that, unlike his masterful 
designs in silver, his written work simply is not very good... even his 
wife described him as writing "through cotton wool". This document, 
however, transcends C.R. Ashbee's stylistic limitations, as it is nothing 
less than his own post-mortem of, and justification for, his life's work 
-The Guild of Handicraft, written at the time that the Guild had finally 
collapsed under a mountain of debts. Here he explains what the Guild was 
trying to do, why they were trying to do it, how they did it, why it did 
not work, and how it could be made to work.

Here he attacks his critics and declares that the Guild and the Arts and 
Crafts Movement will rise again. He dedicates the book-

"To those Members of the Guild of Handicraft, who, whether working in the 
Guild's shops or not, have decided to stick to it and see it through".

He further shows his determination by placing this quote from Cecil Rhodes 
opposite the Contents page-

"If you have an Idea, and it is a good Idea, and you will only stick to it, 
you will come out all right in the end".

Of course, it did not come out "all right in the end" for the Guild, but 
that is another story... this book remains as Ashbee's rather polemical but 
nonetheless important treatise on his work and the ideals of the Arts and 
Crafts Movement. Hardcover. 6.5"x10", 258 pages, b/w illustrations; 
original tan boards and cloth spine; covers with some wear and darkening 
around the edges; top corner chipped; endpapers toned, light soil. [03076] 
$750.00

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