DOVES PRESS - William SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616). The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Hammersmith, The Doves Press, 1913, 4to (233 x 165mm), printed in red and black, contemporary dark blue morocco gilt by the Doves Bindery. ONE OF 200 COPIES ON PAPER.

DOVES PRESS - William Shakespeare (1564-1616).  The Tragedie of Julius Caesar. Hammersmith [London]: The Doves Press, 1913. 4to (233 x 165mm). Printed in red and black throughout, 4-pages of errata at the end. Contemporary (1921) dark blue crushed morocco by Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson at the Doves Bindery, the upper cover lettered in gilt with a small foliate device stamped in gilt beneath the title, both covers with 2 single gilt fillet borders and an inner border of interlacing double gilt fillets, gilt edges (joints, corners and top and bottom of spine rubbed). The binding is stamped in gilt on the rear turn-in "The Doves Bindery 19 C-S 21". Provenance: Loosely-inserted is an autograph letter, dated "10/iii", stating, "My dear Wilfred, For some time I have been looking for something which you might like, to give to you more or less to 'commemorate' your recent promotion. Perhaps this is it. I hope that it will give you pleasure and turn you away from office papers once is a while. [?]Baby." We have been unable to identify the writer of the letter or its recipient. LIMITED TO 212 COPIES, THIS ONE OF 200 COPIES ON PAPER. The colophon states: "Printed by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson at The Doves Press, 15 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, from the Text of the First Folio, first imprinted in 1623, with only such corrections of the Text as are set out opposite [i.e. in the errata]. 200 copies on paper and 12 on vellum. Compositor: William Jenkins. Press-men: H. Gage Cole and Albert Lewis." "Cobden-Sanderson was sixty when he entered into partnership with Emery Walker in founding the Doves Press. Between them ... they evolved a type of superb beauty. Though also based on Jenson, it was somewhat lighter than Morris's Golden Type, a factor that enabled them to use hand-made paper that was less bulky and more suitable for book work. With this type they printed books of austere but great beauty. In contrast to the lavish black ornament of the Kelmscott Press there was no decoration unless one counts an occasional coloured, though undecorated, initial. They relied on faultless presswork, the beauty of the type and the perfect design and balance of their pages" (Thomas Great Books and Book Collectors (1975), p.221). Ransom Private Presses and their Books 36; Tidcombe The Doves Press 32; Tomkinson A Select Bibliography of the Principal Modern Presses p.57.