This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/28/2021
[FORE–EDGE PAINTING]. COOK, Eliza (1818–1889). Poems. London: Routledge, Warne, & Routledge, 1864. 8vo. Steel–engraved portrait frontispiece, numerous woodcut engravings. Early green morocco ruled in gilt, raised bands, gilt framing and lettering in compartments, all edges gilt, concealing a FORE–EDGE PAINTING of a complete deck of playing cards (front hinge reinforced, joints expertly refurbished). Tipped–in with a sheet of rules in manuscript to play cartomancy. Provenance: Stevens Sanderson (bookplate). A very unusual fore–edge painting relating to Cook’s poem titled The Sacrilegious Gamester (see pp. 120–124). Weber states that there are ONLY 2 KNOWN SPECIMENS of this fore–edge painting and describes it as being made by a “Fortune–Telling” artist. One of the known specimens (Goldsmith’s Poetical Works, ca. 1850, at Wool House Books) also has a tipped–in sheet of fortunes as seen in this copy. Weber, Annotated Dictionary of Fore–Edge Paintings pp. 148–49.