SONGS AND POEMS OF JOHN DRYDEN

Limited edition of 500, this copy unnumbered and inscribed 'out of series' in pencil to the limitation page. Folio. Full red morocco with five raised bands to the spine, ruled in gilt and with titles in gilt. All edges gilt. Matching red marbled endpapers. Illustrated with 8 full page colour plates and numerous black and white drawings by Lavinia Blythe (pseudonym of Leslie Blanche). A very good or better copy, the binding square and firm with a little rubbing and the odd minor scuff to the boards. The contents are clean and bright throughout and remain free from any previous owners' inscriptions or stamps. An attractive example.

A sumptuous edition of Dryden's poems, wonderfully illustrated by Lavinia Blythe in a style reminicent of Rex Whistler, with whom she had been a fellow student at the Royal College of Art, and printed in Eric Gill's Golden Cockerel type at The Chiswick Press. As the publisher, Christopher Sandford, recalled: "Dryden, I felt, merited a Golden Cockerel edition, and a glorious one...[it] was for me a most satisfying book, maybe my best, and one I would be happy to be remembered by" (Cock-A-Hoop, p.41).