The Misfortunes of Elphin (Limited Edition)

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Limited Edition: 'Printed by Robert Ashwin Maynard at the Gregynog Press, near Newtown, in Montgomeryshire, and completed on the ninth day of October, MCMXXVIII. The text followed is that of the first edition. The wood-engravings are by Horace Walter Bray. The edition is limited to two hundred and fifty copies, of which this is No.' 159 is penciled beside 'No.' This book is in very nice condition. You can see the blue and black designed covers in the photos. There are a few areas on the covers that puff up slightly. Also some whitish lines of slight color loss, similar to what can be seen in other sellers photos. Quarter bound in cloth with printed cloth covered boards. The gilt lettering is still bright on the spine. The cover edges look very good. The two top corners have speck-sized spots of rub-through. The two bottom corners have small, thin spots of rub-through. The middle and bottom page edges are deckled or rough-cut. They did a good job. The book is square and the spine straight. The binding is very solid from cover to cover with nicely tight pages throughout and nicely tight covers as well. The white inside covers and end papers are very clean. Here is something you're going to want to know about: all of the pages of the text, beginning with page 1 are uncut at the top edge. So, you can read page 1 and then page 2 and 3 not so much, and you can read page 4 and 5, but 6 and 7 only if you are desperate to. That's the way it is all the way through to the limitation page which follows the last page of the book, 119. Curiously, the three blank front end papers and the three blank rear end papers are cut, as is the half-title page and the title page. The very positive aspect of this is that the pages of the book, being unread, are in excellent condition, very clean throughout (I peeked at the hidden pages). Moreover, I'm not finding any conspicuous creasing, there are no markings, and no writing of any kind. There is only one attachment, the bookplate of a Calvin Neff. It is affixed to the front inside cover (see photo). In 'The Art of the Bookplate' by James P. Keenan the bookplate is referenced: 'Because there is no record indicating that Calvin Neff commissioned this ex libris directly from Rockwell Kent, we must assume that Neff simply adapted this illustration as his bookplate without the usual collaboration-- or permission-- of the artist. Kent's stark portrait of the obsessed Captain Ahab served as the frontispiece for the original Lakeside Press edition of Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick. Published as a three-volume set with two hundred and eighty illustrations and packaged in an aluminum slipcase, the book sold for seventy dollars at the time and was extremely popular.' The bookplate is in top-notch shape.William Faulkner had a framed print of Kent?s Captain Ahab in his living room in Oxford, Mississippi. The Gregynog Press was 'founded in 1922 by the sisters and art patrons Margaret and Gwendoline Davies, guided by Thomas Jones, the press was named after their mansion Gregynog Hall. Jones remained its chairman throughout its existence. It rose to prominence in the pre-war era as among the more important private presses, publishing limited edition books, primarily on a Victoria platen printing press. Much of the printing work from 1927 to 1936 was carried out by the skilled printer Herbert John Hodgson, who had previously worked on the 1926 edition of the T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The American poet and printer Loyd Haberly was briefly the controller of the press. In 1954 after the death of Gwendoline Davies, Margaret donated most of the machinery used by Gregynog Press to the National Library of Wales. The press was reopened under the Welsh title Gwasg Gregynog by the University of Wales in 1978, and production resumed. Among the publications of the press are a series of pamphlets entitled 'Beirdd Gregynog / Gregynog Poets': the first of these was Euros Bowen's Yr Alarch, 1987.'. N° de ref. del artículo 005116

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