[Rarebooks] FS: Three from the Daniel Press

[John & Karen Howell]

Offered today, three books from the Daniel Press, an influential late Victorian private press venture.

1 BRIDGES, Robert Seymour (1844-1930).  Poems.  Oxford: Printed at the Private Press of H. Daniel, 1884.  Small 4to.  9 x 7 ¼ inches.  [viii], 52, [2] pp.  Fleuron tailpieces, printer’s device on the last page; text with occasional pencil marginalia  Quarter white vellum, blue paper over boards, spine titled in gilt; binding square and tight, some soiling to covers and leather.  Former owner noted in pencil on the front free endpaper “bought from Pub. H. Daniel, Oxford, direct,” and dated 1884.  Very Good.

$ 850

LIMITED EDITION of 150 copies, this is number 103.  This is the first edition of this work, includes six poems never before printed.  Robert Bridges was a British poet and poet laureate from 1913 to 1930.  Laid in is a sheet of ephemera headed “To the Donors of the Clavichord.”  It contains a facsimile letter by Robert Bridges, dated “Chilswell Dec 1924,” and an Emery Walker photogravure portrait of Bridges sitting beside a clavichord, taken by Lady Ottoline Morrell.   Reference: Daniel Press Bibliography, No. 11. 

 

Presentation Copy from Edmund Gosse

 

2 WEBSTER, John (circa 1580-circa 1634).  Love’s Gradvate: A Comedy.  Oxford: Printed at the Private Press of H. Daniel, 1885.  Small 4to.  9 x 7 ¼ inches.  [iv], (xii), 69, [3] pp.  Printer’s device on the last page; text clean, unmarked.  Quarter white vellum, blue paper over boards, spine titled in gilt; binding square and tight, some light foxing to covers and vellum.  PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED “Mrs. Bessie Waterhouse with Uncle Gosse’s duty,” on front free end-paper.  Very Good.

$ 850

LIMITED EDITION of 150 copies, this is number 30.  Originally published in 1661 as A Cure for a Cuckold, this domestic comedy of John Webster is here reprinted by Sir Edmund William Gosse (1849-1928) who edited the work and provides a preface to the earlier work.  Edmund Gosse was an English poet, author and critic  This book was reviewed in the Atheneum on October 10, 1885 (p. 479); the critic praised the typography of this “charming volume” and used the opportunity to highlight the quality of the work of the Daniel Press.  Reference: Daniel Press Bibliography, p. 97. 

 

3 WOODS, Margaret L. (1856-1945).  Songs.  Oxford: Daniel, 1896.  12mo.  7 ½ x 5 ¼ inches.  28, [2] pp.  Title page printed within a typographic border, various typographic running heads, titles of the poems within plain rules, fleuron tailpiece at the end of the text, printer’s device on the last leaf; text clean, un-marked.  Printed wrappers echo the title-page, yapp edges; binding square and tight, usual wear and tear to the yapp edges, some toning to the wrappers.  Very Good.

$ 450

LIMITED EDITION of 200 copies, this is number 75.  A collection of the poems of Margaret L. Woods, known to her friends as Daisy.  Woods was the daughter of Granville Bradley (1821-1903), schoolmaster and Dean of Westminster.  She was married to Henry George Woods, who became President of Trinity College, Oxford and Master of the Temple.  Margaret Woods was a longstanding friend of the printer, Charles Henry Olive Daniel (1836-1919); Woods contributed a memoir of Daniel, “Henry Daniel and his Home,” in The Daniel Press: Memorials of C. H. O. Daniel, With a Bibliography of the Press, 1845-1919 (pages 22-31).  Daniel printed two of Woods’ works, Lyrics (1888) and the present volume.  Another of Woods’ poems also appeared in the Daniel Press publication, Garland for Rachel (1881).

 

Woods went on to a distinguished career as a novelist and nonfiction writer.  Her fiction includes A Village Tragedy (1887), Esther Vanhomrigh (1891), Sons of the Sword (1905), and The King’s Revoke (1905).  The later novels concern themselves with circus people, events from English, French, and Spanish history, and literary figures such as Swift and Wordsworth.  “Her most imaginative story, “The Invader” (1907) depicts an unexceptional  woman student at Oxford who, after hypnotism, periodically finds her personality taken over by an uninhibited second self that eventually undermines her marriage and causes her death.”  DNB.  Her collected poems were published in 1913.  Daniel Press Bibliography, No. 38; Franklin, Poets of the Daniel Press, p. 77. 

 

TERMS OF SALE: Subject to Prior Sale. 10 % discount offered to the trade. Postage and insurance to be billed at cost. Check or PayPal preferred; credit cards also accepted. Institutions, dealers known to us, and prior customers in good standing may request invoice; otherwise CWO. All items are guaranteed, returnable and fully refundable within 30 days of receipt, provided prior notice of return given. CA sales tax where applicable, unless valid resale certificate provided or on file. Call or e-mail to reserve.

John Howell

 310 367-9720

www.johnhowellforbooks.com