Estimate: | £500 - £800 |
Hammer price: | £400 |
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Translated into English by Edward Fitzgerald with an Introduction by A. C. Benson ... Reproduced from a Manuscript Written and Illuminated by F. Sangorski & G. Sutcliffe. London: Siegle, Hill & Co., [c.1910]. 4to (307 x 220mm). Text and initials printed in red and black, illuminations and illustrations, including 4 full-page, by Ewan Geddes, printed in colours and gold, some very light mainly marginal spotting and staining reproduced from the original manuscript. FINELY BOUND in contemporary "deerskin" gilt [?by Sangorski & Sutcliffe], the upper cover ruled and lettered in gilt and black with five ornamental "hinges" terminating in clover leaf motifs, the spine with five raised bands and lettered in gilt, green endpapers, gilt edges (extremities rubbed). There is no signed limitation leaf to indicate that this is one of the 550 "de-luxe" copies produced in 1910 as usually appears. The front cover lower dentelle has "Bound in deerskin" stamped in small letters but, above it, the name of the binder of this copy seems, inexplicably, to have been scratched out (see illustration) but the binding's style and quality bears the unmistakable hallmarks of Sangorski & Sutcliffe. It is more usually found bound in pictorial vellum.