Early English Imprints in Fine Contemporary Bindings.
Four examples, including three with fore-edge painting/decoration, viz., Richard Allestree's The Ladies Calling, Oxford: at the Theater, 1673, octavo, bound in full contemporary elaborately gilt-tooled olive morocco, with gilt edges and fore-edge decoration incorporating angel faces framed by wings and entwining Scottish thistles and Tudor roses, with marbled endleaves and multiple contemporary inscriptions of female readers, including Cathrine Orson (1698), Mercy Pooley, and Elice Christman, binding bumped and rubbed, but without repair and well-preserved; Jeremy Collier's A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage, London: for S. Keble et al., 1698, octavo, in contemporary calf, blind-tooled in panels, sprinkled and sponge-decorated, rice paper repair to front joint; Goodman's Winter-Evening Conference between Neighbours, London: by J.L. for John Meredith, 1705, octavo, bound in full contemporary red morocco, boards and spine gilt extra, inner joints reinforced with cloth tape, aeg, with a fore-edge painting of Richmond Bridge, over the Thames in London; [and] The Book of Common Prayer, Cambridge: John Baskerville, 1761, small folio, bound in full contemporary red morocco, tooled in gilt with ornate rolled borders on boards, gilt compartments on spine, with aeg and double fore-edge views of Oxford from the river including Christ Church, housed in a custom folding box. (4)
