GRAY, Thomas : Richard Westall illus. Poems Of Thomas Gray. Embellished with engravings from the designs by Richard Westall. , London, Whittingham for John Sharpe 1821.

First Sharpe Edition, Romantic-style binding c.1910 of full tree calf with spine lettered in gilt, front board with three small gilt flowers with red and green leather inlays, lower cover with one matching flower at the centre, binding with elegant gilt edges and turn-ins. 12mo [binding c.16 x 10 cms], ppxxviii, [2] Cenotaph leaf, [2] fly-title, 134, text block with all edges gilt. Illustrated with the Cenotaph engraving, an engraved title-page and 5 other engraved sectional titles [all just lightly spotted or foxed]. The joints, as so often with tree calf bindings of this period, showing some wear, with the upper joint having been neatly repaired at an early date, and the lower joint now cracking. § With a Romantic inscription on blank preliminary page : 'H from J. Given this twentieth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and sixteen under my string and seal. Carisbrooke Castle'. And front pastedown with large and very attractive bookplate of Hilda Corkran [1875-1961 : presumably the H of the inscription] showing an elegant country garden walk, the view decorated with a wide border of books, music and flowers. The bookplate appears to be dated 1900 and the artist may be W. Fry [??]. Hilda Corkran and her husband later became, respectively, Lady-in-Waiting and Comptroller of the Household at Carisbrooke Castle, the Isle of Wight, to HRH Princess Beatrice, the youngest of Queen Victoria's children. Another blank prelim also with an attractive modern booklabel and a neat ink note of date and place of purchase. A neat ink stamp on the reverse of the rear endpaper may be that of the binder : it appears to read W.P.E. (Book ref. 9484 )  £ 25.00

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