This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/21/2024
[BINDINGS – BRITISH LITERATURE]. Group of 3 titles in 4 volumes. Including: GOSSE, Edmund (ed.) The Works of Thomas Gray. London: Macmillan and Co., 1884. 12mo. Two volumes, full green morocco (spines sunned to brown), binding signed by Broadstreet’s, t.e.g., turn-ins and edges gilt, gilt-decorated spine with pinwheel design in compartments. These are the first two volumes from a four-volume set of Gray’s works. – RUSKIN, John. Sesame and Lilies: Three Lectures by John Ruskin. London: George Allen, 1903. 12mo. Full brown morocco, spine in six compartments separated by raised bands, gilt lettering in two compartments, gilt dentelles, t.e.g., ribbon marker bound in, marbled endpapers. -- RUSKIN, John. The Stones of Venice. Volume One: The Foundations London: Smith, Elder & Company, 1851. 4to. xii, (ii), 413, (4), 2 pp. Custom full burgundy morocco, spine in six compartments separated by raised bands and gilt borders, gilt title in one compartment, triple gilt borders on covers, gilt dentelles with floral and triple gilt borders, marbled endpapers, t.e.g., fore-edge deckle. Generously illustrated with some 72 in-text drawings and 21 full-page plates by the author, who had this to say about the illustrations: “... I have used any kind of engraving which seemed suited to the subjects - lime and mezzotint, on steel, with mixed lithographs and woodcuts, at considerable loss of uniformity in the appearance of the volume, but, I hope, with advantage, in rendering the character of the architecture it describes.” Bound in near the end of the volume is an autograph four-page letter from William Challinor to John Sleigh, Esq. concerning the deaths of Mary Elizabeth Challinor and William Edward Challinor. At the end of the volume is a two-page prospectus regarding the potential publication of a volume two, which would contain a set of illustrations by Ruskin in Imperial Folio size. Provenance: Former owner's printed armorial bookplate (Sapere Aude - SLEIGH) on fp, former owner’s name and date (Jan. 19, 1892) on reverse of ffep, hand-written dedication on a red bound-in page (Mary Elizabeth Challinor, 1880) by John Sleigh; otherwise unmarked, tight, square, bright, and clean.