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(ASHENDENE PRESS) MALORY, Sir Thomas.
The noble and joyous book entitled Le Morte Darthur ...
Publisher: Chelsea, at the Ashendene Press, May 1913
Stock code: 47048
Price: £6,500 Currency Conversion
One of 147 copies on paper (not 145, pace the colophon), out of a total edition of 155 copies. This copy presented to William Frederick Danvers (Freddy) Smith, 2nd Viscount Hambleden (1868-1928), grandson of the founder of the stationery group W. H. Smith, by the members of the staff of King's College, London, with a leather presentation label to the front pastedown dated December 1919; and with his son William Henry (Billy) Smith's engraved bookplate on the facing free endpaper. The King's College supralibros is stamped in gilt on the centre of both covers. The founder of the Ashendene Press, St John Hornby, was a friend of Freddy Smith from their time at Oxford; Hornby joined the firm of W. H. Smith as a partner, and quickly rose to a dominant position in the firm. The Ashendene Press books were bound at the W. H. Smith bindery.
Folio. Original brown cowhide, spine with five raised bands, spine titled in gilt in top two compartments and with imprint and date at foot in gilt, board edges and turn-ins ruled in gilt, untrimmed edges. Printed in red and black in Subiaco type, the chapter headings and shoulder notes in red, with initial letters designed by Graily Hewitt and printed alternately red and blue. 2 full-page woodcuts at beginning and end, and 27 smaller woodcuts by W. H. Hooper and J. B. Swain after designs by C. M. Gere and Margaret Gere. Spine gently sunned, endleaves lightly browned from turn-ins and very faintly spotted, an excellent copy.
