Full Vellum

London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1882-3. 12 volume set, 6 1/2 inches tall. A delightful set in late Victorian full vellum, rarely found in this condition. Bound with a smooth back with titles in black and red. Gilt top edges, the remaining edges untrimmed. Finely printed on hand-made paper. A splendid complete set of the Bard's great works, including the Sonnets.

Paris: Chez Garnery, Libraire, 1825. 3 volume set, 5 inches tall. A charming full vellum binding from the early 1800's with gilt bands, twin red labels and dense gilt tooling on a smooth back, a gilt roll frames the boards. All edges gilt. Stipple engraved portrait and folding genealogical table. With the inscription 'Anna Jane Pochin, Florence 1828' on the first blank. Madame de Genlis was a novelist and children's educationalist who is best remembered for her letters and journals of the late 18th and early nineteenth century of which this is a fine selection. In the original French.

London: George Bell and Sons, 1890. Full vellum, 6 inches tall. A splendid little binding with gilt lettering, a flower with red onlayed calf petals on the smooth back and a simple gilt panel on the boards. Gilt dentelles and all edges. A fine selection of classical Greek poetry including verse from The Iliad; The Odyssey, Pindar; Aeschylus; Sophocles; Euripides and Aristophanes, amongst many others.

London: Thomas Nelson, c.1910. Full vellum, 6 inches tall. A delightful little full vellum binding with the spine and boards gilt and with yapp foredge. All edges gilt. With the bookplate of S & E Virgo. Portrait.

Venice: Tommaso Bettinelli, 1803. 3 volumes bound in 2, complete, 6 1/2 inches tall. A charming Italian 'rustic' full velum from the very beginning of the 19th century with gilt framed painted labels and blue speckled edges. Hugh Blair was a Scottish author and rhetorician, considered one of the first great theorists of written discourse. This is an Italian edition teaching his work.

London: John Bell, 1774. Full vellum, 6 1/2 inches tall. A charming 18th century vellum binding with blue calf label, bands and border on the boards. Fine floral gilt tooling on the bands and in the panels, gilt fillets decorate the blue calf straps on the boards. An old hand has written "Edwards (of Halifax) binding" on the reverse of the front free endpaper but I can not verify that, though it is certainly in their distinctive style. There is a neat previous owner's name, "M: Dann" on the first blank. A fine, unsophisticated copy.

London: William S. Orr, 1853. Full vellum, 10 1/2 inches tall. A densely gilt tooled binding with gilt bands, extra gilt panels and twin labels. Some foxing, but mostly clean. Faint blue lines frame the gilt block on the boards. All edges gilt. Profusely illustrated throughout.

Bruxelles: Dumont, 1835. 3 volumes, bound in 2 complete, 6 inches tall. A pretty little set in full vellum with twin labels and sparkling gilt tooling to the spine. Blue speckled edges. A previous owner's neat ink inscription on the half titles reading: G.H. Gladstone (?) Rome April 1839. Engraved plates. A lovely little set by one of the great woman writers and political theorists of her time, in the original French.