Item #18007 The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934. A. J A. Symons, Desmond Flower, Francis Meynell.
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934
The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934

The Nonesuch Century. An appraisal, a personal note and a bibliography of the first hundred books issued by the press, 1923-1934

London: Nonesuch Press, 1936. One of 750 numbered copies. illustrations. The illustrations include three leaves of publisher’s devices, one in color, + six photogravure plates of bindings, + [56] pages of text and title pages + 45 specimen pages, mounted on heavy brown paper. Specimen pages “reset and printed or stencilled by the printers of the books from which they have been taken.” Frontisportrait of Meynell by Eric Gill. Cloth uniformly faded along spine. Front and back boards exhibit progressive fading (worse at head and spine). (This green colored cloth was subject to fading, and most or all copies reflect this.) Mild shelfwear to head and foot of spine. Else fine. With rare, decorated dust jacket, exhibiting only very mild wear. And with laid in correspondence regarding the Nonesuch Press, including: two-page T.L.s. from Douglas Cleverdon to R.C. Rimington, 1929; two-page T.L.s. from Francis Meynell to R.C. Rimington, 1929; two-page A.L.s. from Francis Meynell, 1929; and a single-page T.N.s. from the Nonesuch Press in response to a customer order inquiry, 1936. A very good + copy in a rare and handsome jacket. Green buckram cloth, with gilt-stamped black leather spine label. Cloth uniformly faded along spine. Small folio. xi, [3], 80 pp., followed by illustrations. Item #18007

The Nonesuch Press was founded in London in 1922 by Francis Meynell, his second wife, Vera Mendel, and their friend, the bookseller David Garnett, in whose shop basement the press began. Nonesuch’s goal was to produce fine-press quality books at an affordable price. Toward this end, Nonesuch designed each book on their own Albion press, before sending them off to another press (such as Birmingham’s Kynoch Press, for a time) to be printed en masse. While most of their catalogue consisted of artful re-presentations of classic literature, one of Nonesuch’s most popular entries was The Week-end Book, first printed in 1924. Part literary digest, part encyclopedia, The Week-end Book underwent 34 printings between 1924 and 1955. Ultimately, the press was unable to sustain its model of fine-press designs and customer-friendly prices, but their books are highly sought after today.

From Francis Meynell’s essay “The Personal Element”: “The Object of the book is not so much to give subscribers a chance of possessing the Nonesuch Library in miniature, or even to produce a more spirited manual of modern typography, but rather to give some impression of the work of the Press during its first twelve years of life. The book should be of interest to typographers, for the pages show a wide variety in the treatment of typographic problems. It should also be of interest to collectors, for it contains the best pages from such books as the Nonesuch Bible, the Dante, and the three-volume Blake…It is a demonstration of the Nonesuch Press. But it is also an account of typographical experiment, of trial and error in the making of books; and it may, we hope, contain a small, a very small, part of the history of contemporary typography in England.” Dreyfuss 106; “Nonesuch Press” in the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Volume 39; and “The Week-End Book” in the Rain Taxi Review.

Price: $1,250.00

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