The Only Kelmscott Press Book Published in America KELMSCOTT PRESS. ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel. Hand and Soul. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Chicago: Messrs. Way & Williams , 1895. Full Description:
Hand and Soul. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Chicago: Messrs. Way & Williams, 1895.
Chicago: Sold by Way and Williams, 1895].
One of 300 paper copies, out of a total edition of 311 copies for America (225 paper copies and ten vellum copies were printed for sale in England). Sixteenmo (5 5/8 x 4 inches; 144 x 105 mm). [4, blank], [4], 56 pp. Printed in red and black in Golden type. Decorative woodcut borders and initials. “Reprinted from The Germ for Messrs. Way and William of Chicago by William Morris, at the Kelmscott Press...” (Colophon).
Original stiff vellum with yapp edges. Spine lettered in gilt. Leaves uncut. Some minimal soiling to vellum. Still a fine copy.
“Rossetti wrote this story in December 1849 for the first number of the Germ. It was set in type for the 1869 edition of Rossetti’s Poems, but the author decided not to include it and instead had a few copies printed for private distribution” (Peterson).
Hand and Soul was the only Kelmscott Press book published in America. The colophon differs slightly in the English and American copies.
Clark Library, Kelmscott and Doves, pp. 43-44. Peterson A36. Ransom, Private Presses, p. 329, no. 36. Sparling 36. Tomkinson, pp. 116-117, no. 36. Walsdorf 36.
HBS 69695.
$3,000.
Price: $3,000.00
Item #69695