AURORA LEIGH
London, England: J.M. Dent and Co. (at Aldine House), 1905. Casa Guidi Arts and Crafts”, rather hastily stamped at an angle crossing over one of the horizontal blind rules. Sixth Edition. Leather-bound. Small octavo, 4" x 6", 366 p., Handcrafted leather cover with title and cover design imprinted in black into the front leather board. Back board double-ruled in blind, and imprinted in small lettering on the bottom: "The Casa Guidi Arts and Crafts." 4 raised bands,5 compartments, each with a tiny, carved floral design. Fore-edge untrimmed. . 3/4 in. patch of old price-sticker on spine. Haunting almost photographic frontispiece portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (H. Buxton Forman, Editor)
Owner ink stamp of Poet and novelist Elizabeth Lambert Wood to top of front pastedown (signed), and free endpaper. Bookplate, 3" x 3.5", on front pastedown. Ms.Wood penciled a brief note to rear pastedown, jotting down these lines from book VII of the work (p. 275) which particularly moved her: "Earth's crammed with heaven / And every common bush afire with God:" This issue...has been edited by H. Buxton Forman, who has revised the text and added the Marginalia" (note at rear). Printed by Turnbull and Spears in Edinburgh. Very Good in Custom Handcrafted Leather Binding. Item #85388
Aurora Leigh is "an epic poem/novel ...written in blank verse and encompasses nine books .....In Books 1-5, Aurora narrates her past, from her childhood to the age of about 27; in Books 6–9, the narrative has caught up with her, and she reports events in diary form. The author styled the poem 'a novel in verse', and referred to it as "the most mature of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered". ...John Ruskin called it the greatest long poem of the nineteenth century. (Wikipedia)
This edition is from "The Temple Classics, (Series edited by Israel Gollancz). ". Casa Guidi is the 15th century. building in Florence, Italy, and was the home to authors Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning from 1847 - 1861. "Aurora Leigh" was written in 1856 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning while at Casa Guidi. The home became a center for the Barrett's legacy, and this cover has a mark indicating the binding was crafted at this center.
Ed. Israel Gollancz, and published in 1905 by J.M. Dent and Co. at Aldine House in London. However the binding is curious, and appears hand-crafted.
Price: $125.00