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[PUTTENHAM, George.] The Arte of English Poesie. Contrived into three Bookes: The first of Poets and Poesie, the second of Proportion, the third of Ornament. Published: London: by Richard Field, 1589.
Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
Quarto (184 x 127 mm). Dark green levant morocco by Rivière, floral and ornamental gilt border on pointillé ground on sides, gilt dentelles, spine gilt, edges gilt. Bookplate. Woodcut device (McKerrow 222) on title page, woodcut portrait of Elizabeth I, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, and diagrams; bound without first and last blanks.
First and only contemporary edition; “an ambitious work of literary history and criticism as well as a rhetorical handbook for the practising poet” (ODNB). Puttenham’s examples are drawn mostly from early to mid-16th-century writers, poetry such as Richard Tottel’s Songs and Sonnets or the works of George Gascoigne and George Turberville. Ben Jonson owned a copy and carefully annotated it. The book was published anonymously with a dedication to Burghley subscribed “R. F.” by the printer Richard Field, the Stratford contemporary of William Shakespeare. Field was associated with the printing or publishing of many important sources for Shakespeare’s plays, suggesting the possibility that the playwright may have had access to his townsman’s shop. William Lowes Rushton itemizes an impressive number of parallels between The Art of English Poesie and the language displayed in Shakespeare’s plays.
May 8, 2016 | Videos
POTTER, Beatrix. [Complete set of deluxe editions:] The Tale of Peter Rabbit; The Tailor of Gloucester; The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin; The Tale of Two Bad Mice; The Tale of Benjamin Bunny; The Pie and the Patty-Pan; The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle; The Tale of Jeremy Fisher; The Tale of Tom Kitten; The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck; The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies; The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse. Published: London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1902–10.
Presented by Pom Harrington of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
12 works: 11 sextodecimo, 1 small quarto. Original gilt decorated cloth, pictorial labels to front boards, pictorial endpapers, except: Peter Rabbit bound in yellow cloth lettered red, grey patterned endpapers; Squirrel Nutkin and Tailor of Gloucester in floral cloth with gilt-lettered vellum labels, pictorial endpapers; Pie and the Patty-Pan in pale blue cloth lettered blue, white moiré endpapers. Each book housed in a custom folding case. An excellent set. Some hinges split but holding, a few with light finger-marks to contents, some with contemporary gift inscriptions, a little rubbing to extremities. The Pie and the Patty-Pan with bookplates of H. Bradley Martin and Mildred Greenhill, and misbound at p. 14.
Complete set of the first deluxe editions of the Peter Rabbit series. Priced at 1/6- rather than 1/- for the paper-covered books, the deluxe editions went through three iterations before a consistent style was settled upon. The first deluxe binding of Peter Rabbit was issued in two colours, yellow and green. Potter felt this unimpressive, writing, “I thought last year there was not sufficient difference between the two styles of binding – that if the cloth binding had been more distinctly different, and pretty, there might have been more inducement to buy it.” She obtained some samples of patterned cloth from her grandfather’s textile printing works: Edmund Potter & Co. of Manchester, one of the largest calico printers in Europe. An art fabric binding, which Potter referred to as “a flowered lavender chintz, very pretty” was selected for the deluxe issues of the Tailor of Gloucester and Squirrel Nutkin in 1903, and vellum labels used for the title and author’s name, as it was impracticable to print directly onto the fabric. The following October, a brightly coloured moiré cloth decorated in gilt was chosen for the deluxe issue, coinciding with the publication of Benjamin Bunny and the Two Bad Mice. Potter contributed to the gilt design, noting in a letter to the Warnes that “I will do some sketches of designs for the cover while I am at Melford.” This design, with some minor alterations to the gilt decoration, was adopted for the deluxe editions of the rest of the series.
May 8, 2016 | Videos
Presented by Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Sextodecimo, pages unnumbered. Original pictorial grey paper boards, decoration and titles to front board in black. Housed in a custom black quarter morocco and cloth solander box. Coloured frontispiece and 41 text illustrations after pen and ink drawings. With the bookplates of Mildred Greenhill and H. Bradley Martin to the front pastedown. A faint spray of foxing to a few leaves, slight marking to front free endpapers, still an exceptional copy of this fragile publication.
First edition, first impression. The first of her small format books to be published, The Tale of Peter Rabbit was developed from a picture letter sent to Noel Moore on 4 September 1893. In 1900, Potter thought it might make a small book, and contacted Moore to see if he had kept the letter and if she might borrow it back; the letter was then expanded into the book with 41 black and white drawings and a colour frontispiece. However, as a larger format and colour were in vogue at the time for children’s books, it was rejected by a number of publishers, including Warne, after they found Potter was adamant that the size and form of the book should not be altered. Determined to see it in print, she decided to publish it herself, with the colour frontispiece printed by Herschel of Fleet Street using the recently introduced three colour press. The privately-printed edition was ready on 16 December 1901 in an edition of 250 copies; Potter presented them to friends and relatives, and also sold them for 1/2d. Within two weeks it proved so popular that she commissioned a second impression. The book was then taken up by Frederick Warne and published in a regular trade edition in October 1902.
May 8, 2016 | Videos
Presented by Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Folded booklet of 5 pages. Original ink holograph and watercolour manuscript with 9 ink and watercolour drawings and text by Potter, the first with title and “H. Gerbault. Copy” written below, the remainder with accompanying verse, unbound. Housed in a custom brown folding case. In superb condition.
The illustrated French poem is identified as the work of Beatrix Potter by the accompanying note written by an executor of the artist, stating that “the enclosed poem is an example of fine copying done on notepaper by Beatrix Potter (from her portfolios at Sawrey, Oct. 49).” Henri Gerbault (1863–1930) was a French illustrator and watercolourist, and this manuscript is based on a contribution by Gerbault to a children’s periodical of the early 1890s, later anthologised in Chansons du vieux temps with music by J. Tiersot (1904), also with designs by Gerbault. It is thought that these and other similar copies were made by Potter to improve her figure drawing, always her weakest point, as she later acknowledged: “I am not good – or trained – in drawing human figures (they are a terrible bother to me when I have perforce to bring them into the pictures for my own little stories)”.
UPDATE BOOK SOLD
May 8, 2016 | Videos
Presented by Ben Houston of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Sellotape residue to extreme top edge, light creasing to margins hidden by the mount. Presented in a lime wax frame with conservation mount and glass.
Edition of 300, signed in pencil lower right by Lowry, with the Fine Art Trade Guild blindstamp lower left. The print is reproduced from an original 1953 oil painting of football fans converging on Burnden Park, Bolton Wanderers’ old football stadium. Originally titled Football Ground, the painting won first prize in a competition organized by the Football Association. This was a surprise to Lowry, who had no idea the picture had been entered. In 1999 the painting was bought by the Professional Footballers’ Association for £1.9 million, a record price at the time for a Lowry painting.
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