Poets in the Garden
London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1886.
Hardcover. "...from the days when Chaucer knelt on the 'swote grasse' to reverence the Daisy, till Wordsworth found in flowers 'thoughts too deep for tears,' poets have loved to tell and we to read of 'violet-broidered glens' and fair Perdita's flower-knots..." Organized by flower, from Acacia to Yew, this lovely 1886 anthology winds together, as in the creation of a flower crown, the words of the great poets--Milton, Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare, William Blake, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emerson, George Eliot, Edgar Allan Poe, Tennyson, and many more--all on the subject of the flowers and foliage that surround and inspire us all. These flora-fledged verses were gathered by the novelist and travel writer Maria Henrietta de la Cherois Crommelin (1850–1930) and come illustrated in one tissue-guarded chromolithographic plate of the Hollyhock flower, with many charming headpieces, tailpieces, and decorative initials throughout.
8 3/4" X 6 7/8". 256pp. Bound in blue cloth over boards, with floral bouquet stamped in black to upper board and spine, both lettered in gilt. Mild edgewear to binding, with some bumping to extremities and light scattered rubbing. Faint pencil marks to front pastedown. Previous owner's name to front free endpaper: "N. M. Turner, September 1886, Received for Success in a 'Word Competition.'" Front hinge tender. Hint of spine at page 144 and again at 160. Binding remains quite firm and sound. Other records show 8 tissue-guarded illustrations and an illustration list; this copy has only the tissue-guarded chromolithographic frontispiece of the Hollyhock flower, no list of illustrations, and no sign of removed illustrations. Thus, illustrated in only one chromolithograph, with many charming headpieces, tailpieces, and decorative initials throughout. Good. Item #8534
Price: $60.00