“HIS FAME… RESTS SECURELY UPON THE FACT THAT HE HAD SOMETHING OF IMPORTANCE TO SAY”: MAGNIFICENT DOVES PRESS DELUXE EDITION OF EMERSON’S ESSAYS: ONE OF ONLY 25 COPIES PRINTED ENTIRELY ON VELLUM

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Essays. With Preface by Thomas Carlyle. Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1906. Large octavo, original full limp vellum. Housed in a contemporary chemise and half morocco slipcase.

Deluxe Doves Press edition of Emerson’s Essays, one of only 25 copies beautifully printed on vellum by the Doves Press (out of a total edition of 325 copies), in lovely publisher’s full vellum. Rare.

The Doves Press, founded in 1900 by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker, was one of the greatest of the private presses. Books printed at the Doves Press are characterized by a stark simplicity, “dependent for their beauty almost entirely upon the clarity of the type, the excellence of the layout, and the perfection of the presswork” (Cave, 147). The press’ printer’s device, the outline of two doves, is used as its watermark and is moulded into the fabric of the paper rather than printed. Doves imprints are scarce, because when the press closed in 1913, Cobden-Sanderson cast all the type off the Hammersmith Bridge into the Thames—to remain “untouched for other use” (Ransom, 59).

Originally published in 1841, this renowned collection of essays captures the spirit of Emerson’s timelessness: “His fame… rests securely upon the fact that he had something of importance to say, and that he said it with a beautiful freshness which does not permit his best pages to grow old… It is not possible to forget his manner of announcing that men are exalted creatures, that instinct is to be obeyed, and that the soul is a sensible reality” (DAB). “Timeless and without a trace of dating… the Essays’ ethical inspiration and stimulation, their occasional startling phrase, their individualistic idealism, which stirred renascent Yankee New England to its depths, speaks with the same simple power and force in the midst of modern complexities” (Grolier American: 47). The Doves Press Essays contains the original preface by Thomas Carlyle and twelve of Emerson’s humanist studies, including his celebrated “Self-Reliance,” as well as “History,” “Compensation,” “Spiritual Laws,” “Love,” “Friendship,” “Prudence,” “Heroism,” “Over-Souls,” “Circles,” “Intellect” and “Art.” Emerson’s Essays was published in 1906 in an edition of only 325 copies, 300 on paper and 25 on vellum. This is one of the 25 copies on vellum, elegantly printed in black with red initials. Owner signature of William Targ, the famed editor, publisher and bibliophile, considered to be “one of the greatest post-World War II editors.” Born William Torgownik in Chicago and “fueled by a passion for books,” Targ began as an office boy at Macmillan and at 22 “opened his own bookshop and began to amass what would eventually become a collection of thousands of rare books and first editions.” Targ closed the bookshop when editing positions led him to New York, where he became a powerful and beloved editor-in-chief at Putnam’s. On retiring in 1979 Targ founded the private press, Targ Editions, famed for its select publication of prized works, each “beautifully printed, by letter press, and bound, in limited editions signed by the authors” (New York Times). Targ’s authors, as editor and publisher, include Saul Bellow, Henry Roth, Simone de Beauvoir, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, Norman Mailer and Mario Puzo, whose novel The Godfather Targ agreed to publish sight unseen after two other publishers had turned it down. At his death in 1999, Targ was fondly remembered as “a modern Dr. Johnson” (The Independent).

A fine copy. Rare.