A Few Sonnets Attempted From Petrarch In Early Life..
Bound in recent quarter calf gilt with the spine in compartments and five raised bands highlighted with gilt ruling, over the original boards which are a little rubbed. Internally a fine example with only a few foxing marks in the margins close to the deckle edges. A fine copy of a beautifully set and hand printed book.
£400.00
Details
LEE PRIORY PRESS
Publisher
Printed at the private Press of Lee Priory; by John Warwick.,
Place
Lee Priory Kent.
Date
1817
Item Description
First and only edition, 4to. [i] + 12 + [4] = 95 pp. illustrated with fine wood engravings, including a depiction of Lee Priory on the title page vignette. Each sonnet opens with an engraved heraldic initial and is set within ruled borders. Rare 100 copies only printed.
Notes
The book prints translations of forty sonnets by Petrarch, with an introduction ('Advertisement') and notes by 'F.W.' The Lee Priory Press was an early private press, run by Sir Egerton Brydges from 1813-1823. Brydges (1762-1837), born at Wootton Court near Canterbury, was a genealogist (obsessed with the peerage and his vain attempts to claim an extinct barony) and literary scholar. At Lee Priory, near Ickham, Kent Brydges employed printers and compositors to print to a very high quality, early and rare works of literature, especially poetry. These were sold in very small editions of a hundred or less, at high prices. Lee Priory is considered to be the earliest press of the private press movement.
[Stock No. 19667]
