Sims Reed Rare Books×

Essays. With Preface by Thomas Carlyle

Doves Press. Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Hammersmith. The Doves Press. 1906
A fine copy on vellum of Emerson's Essays, the only American text printed at the Doves Press.

From the edition limited to 325 copies, with this one of 25 on vellum.

'Cobden-Sanderson had actually met Emerson once when Emerson was visiting London in the 1860s. In a presentation copy of the Doves edition of the Essays, Cobden-Sanderson wrote that they were printed in memory of a conversation he had had with Emerson as they walked together down Pall Mall. Cobden-Sanderson was attracted to Emerson's idealism, and to the hint of mysticism that coloured his view of nature. In Cobden-Sanderson's mind Emerson was 'a pinncale of a man'. The Essays, issued in June 1906, were printed from the first English edition, with a preface by Carlyle. It was the first Doves Press book in which Miller and Richard's Old Style italic was used... '. (Tidcombe).

[Tidcombe DP8; see Ransom, Doves 9].
[164 leaves including blanks; pp. 311, (i)]. 8vo. (235 x 170 mm). Leaf with printed title recto, five leaves with Thomas Carlyle's preface recto and verso, leaf with list of contents and Emerson's twelve essays, each with four-line initial in red, final leaf of text with colophon verso. (Sheet size: 234 x 166 mm). Original publisher's limp vellum with stamped signature to rear pastedown: 'THE DOVES BINDERY', paper endpapers and pastedowns, title gilt to spine.
#48469

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