John Gower | De Confessione Amantis, 1554, the Berland copy

John Gower

De Confessione Amantis. London: printed by Thomas Berthelet, 12 March 1554

Folio (267 x 188 mm), gothic type, title-page within woodcut border (McKerrow & Ferguson 26), woodcut initials, nineteenth-century red morocco gilt, covers panelled in gilt in Restoration style, edges gilt and gauffered, final blank removed, title with lower inner margin repaired, a few wormholes occasionally touching letters, N3 shaved close at head, small rust-hole on Z6 catching a few letters, lightly rubbed at head of spine

Third edition (following Caxton's first of 1483 and Berthelet's second edition of 1532).

PROVENANCE:

Iltyd Nicholl: inkstamp on flyleaf and bookplate; Digby Nicholl: stamp on flyleaf; William Marchbank: armorial bookplate; E.M. Cox: bookplate and initials in pencil on flyleaf (dated 1904); bought by Abel E. Berland from Maggs Bros., London, 17 August 1973: bookplate and purchase note in pencil on flyleaf, his sale, Christie's New York, 8 October 2001, lot 54

LITERATURE:

Pforzheimer 422; STC 12144