[Rarebooks] fa: DESIGNS BY MR. R. BENTLEY FOR SIX POEMS BY MR. T. GRAY 1753 - First Issue

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, January 29. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/7cy66kw

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

[Richard Bentley (illus.), Thomas Gray:] Designs by Mr. R. Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray. London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1753. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with the half-title reading "Drawings, &c." (later changed to "Designs, &c."). Folio (38 x 27.5 cm) bound in period crimson morocco, rebacked, tooled in gilt; [8],72,[3]p. (printed rectos only, except leaves 2-3, "Explanation of the Prints") + 6 full-page engraved plates; engraved vignettes and initials. ESTC T122525; Hazen 42.

First issue of this large, handsomely illustrated collection, with two of Gray's poems, A Long Story and Hymn to Adversity, appearing for the first time. The other poems are: Ode on the Spring; Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes; Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College; and Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard. Horace Walpole, who commissioned and published the work, wrote the 4-page "Explanation of the Prints" that precedes the text and plates. Scattered mostly mild spotting throughout, occasional spots of light soiling and fingering, small worm-hole near the gutter, not affecting any text or engravings, early owners' signatures on the title-page; binding shows some old, professional repairs to the leather, bumping and wear to the corners, sunning to the spine; overall, a very good, sound copy in a handsome period binding. Front paste-down with the book labels of Robert Jones, Liverpool, and H. Harvey Frost. Loosely laid in are a receipt and signed letter from booksellers Pickering & Chatto, dated 1972.

With six full-page ornately engraved plates, thirteen large engraved vignettes, and six engraved initials by Müller and Grignon after designs by Richard Bentley. When Walpole proposed the project to Gray, the poet insisted that the title emphasize the artist's work rather than his own: "I desire it to be understood (which is the truth) that the Verses are only subordinate & explanatory to the Drawings." Elegantly produced and expensively priced at half a guinea, there were nonetheless three editions within a year. It has been widely praised ever since, by, among others, art historian Kenneth Clark of Civilization fame. Hazen hailed it as "a landmark in the history of English book illustration," and Harthan, in his History of the Illustrated Book, described it as "by far the most sophisticated example of English rococo book-illustration... perhaps the finest English illustrated book of the century."