Eros and Psyche: A Poem in XII Measures. With Wood-Cuts from Designs by Edward Burne-Jones.
[Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales:]: Gregynog Press, 1935. One of 285 copies in pigskin out of three hundred total. With twenty-four woodcuts after drawings by Edward Burne-Jones, including two full-page and several half-page illustrations. Cut by Loyd Haberly and R. John Beedham and prepared for woodcutting by Dorothy Hawksley. Text printed in red and black with green initial letters. The type was designed by Graily Hewitt and used only in this book. Printed on Batchelor handmade paper. A very good or better copy. White pigskin titled and stamped in gilt with a circular design that incorporates hand-tooling. Toning to pigskin, as usual (Colin Franklin says the binding was “a particularly foolish choice” for this reason). Top edge gilt. With a folded leaf (4 pp.) of specimen pages, including two woodcuts. Quarto. [8], 141, [3] pp. Item #17259
Cave writes that the forty-two books printed by the Gregynog press, beginning in 1923, “more than bear comparison with the work of any other private press. In the design and execution of the bindings it was far superior to any, the Doves Press included.” Cave writes that the present book, which was the last produced under Haberly’s supervision, was the “principle book to be produced” under Haberly. Franklin calls it “a notable book…bringing together almost sentimentally the old players — Kelmscott paper, a type cut for the press, Graily Hewitt, Burne-Jones, Bridges” and praises the controversial typeface as “a bit undisciplined but brave and different, calligraphic, splendid for Gregynog.”.
Harrop, A History of the Gregynog Press, #33 (p. 202).
Price: $1,500.00