J.W. von Goethe | Tasso, 1913, Doves Press, one of 12 copies on vellum with gold initials

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Torquato Tasso ein Schauspiel van Goethe. Hammersmith: Printed by T.J. Cobden Sanderson at the Doves Press, 1913

8vo (235 x 170mm), limited to 227 copies of which 200 are on paper, 15 are on vellum and 12 are on vellum with initials in gold, of which this is ONE OF 12 COPIES ON VELLUM WITH INITIALS IN GOLD BY GRAILY HEWITT, printed in red and black with initials in gold to half title and at the beginning of each act, edges gilt, in red niger morocco gilt by the Dove's Bindery (signed "19 C-S 13"), slipcase, expertly rebacked retaining original spine

A FINE COPY ON VELLUM OF A BOOK PRINTED BY T.J. COBDEN-SANDERSON IN THE CELEBRATED DOVES ROMAN TYPE. This copy is not only printed on vellum but has calligraphic initials in gold by the noted calligrapher Graily Hewitt (1864-1952). When Cobden-Sanderson closed the press he famously threw the matrices and type into the Thames to ensure that nothing should ever come into the hands of his erstwhile partner, Emery Walker, thereby unwittingly creating a project for 21st-century mudlarks who have recovered hundreds of pieces of type from the riverbed over the last decade.

The Doves Press published a number of works by Goethe, an author who exemplified Cobden-Sanderson's project to "set man again at work upon the creation of the Fit, the Seemly, and the Beautiful". This play, which was completed in 1790, dramatises a period in the life of the poet Tasso at the court of the Duke of Ferrara, when tensions with his patron resulted in his being imprisoned in an insane asylum for seven years.

PROVENANCE:

Philip C. Duschnes Rare Books, New York (bookseller's label); M. Weiss (pictorial bookplate)