Akenside, Mark

The Poems

By W. Bowyer and J. Nichols, and sold by J. Dodsley London 1772 Fine mezzotint frontispiece portrait by Fisher after Pond. First Edition. 4to. [300 x 240 x 42 mm]. xi, [i], 380 pp. Bound in contemporary stained calf, the covers with a border of a single gilt fillet and a decorative pattern created by the application of a stencil during the staining process. The spine divided into six panels, lettered in the second on a red goatskin label, the others tooled in gilt and including a large triple-headed flower tool, edges of the boards tooled with a gilt roll, green edges, comb-marbled endleaves. (Joints cracked at head and foot and rubbed, corners and headcaps worn, the tooling on the spine partly corroded). With the first blank leaf (with off-setting from the final page of the copy placed on top of it in the printing house). A very good clean copy of this handsome and typographically admirable edition, with the fine mezzotint portrait. [Something about Akenside - Pleasures of the Imagination etc]. The binding is highly unusual, though not unique. The covers have been stained a dark brown, with a stencil applied to the borders to create a contrasting lighter-coloured decorative knot-work pattern. The same method, and apparently the same stencil, was also used on a set of the Baskerville Addison (1761) in the stock of Maggs Bros. Both examples have green edges - a characteristic feature of Irish bindings, though both have English provenances. [BM 266 - binding by James Marks with stencilling]. Early Joliffe bookplate, and by descent to Lord Hylton of Ammerdown House, Somerset.

• GBP 400.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: ebc668

• bookseller: George Bayntun (GREAT BRITAIN)