THE ESSEX PRESS POEMS OF SHAKESPEARE, ONE OF ONLY 450 COPIES
SHAKESPEARE. The Poems of William Shakespeare, According to the Text of the Original Copies, Including the Lyrics, Songs and Snatches Found in His Dramas. (London: Edward Arnold [The Essex House Press], 1899). Square octavo, original full limp vellum, silk ties, uncut and unopened.
Limited Essex House Press edition of Shakespeare, number 174 of only 450 copies, beautifully printed in black and red, with woodcut frontispiece of Venus and Adonis by Reginald Savage and numerous woodcut initial letters by William Harcourt Hooper.
Lawrence Hodson and Charles Robert Ashbee founded the Essex Press in 1898 "in the hope to keep living the traditions of good printing that William Morris had revived" (Ransom, 41). Edited by Frederick Startridge Ellis, this handsome private-press edition of Shakespeare's poems is embellished with ornamental woodcut initials by William Harcourt Hooper and a full-page woodcut illustration of "Venus and Adonis" by Reginald Savage, "a talented and imaginative designer… commended by Walter Crane for his 'weird designs" (Houfe, 292). Ransom, Essex House 9. Bookplate.
Interior fine, only light soiling to front panel of vellum. A beautiful, entirely unopened copy.