“SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, LIKE THE NIGHT”: BYRON’S POEMS, IN A BEAUTIFUL COSWAY-STYLE BINDING

BYRON. Poems of Lord Byron. London: Chatto and Windus, 1923. Octavo, 20th-century full blue morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spine and boards with Cosway-style portrait on front board, watered silk endpapers, all edges gilt. $10000.

Handsomely printed edition of Byron's poems, beautifully bound by Asprey in a Cosway-style binding with a portrait inset on the front board.

Cosway bindings (named in 1909 for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were the brainchild of John Harrison Stonehouse, managing director of London booksellers Henry Sotheran & Company, who in 1902 struck on the idea of embedding miniature paintings in the covers of richly-tooled bindings. He engaged the famous Rivière bindery to execute his idea in accordance with his own designs. Rivière brought into its employ Miss C.B. Currie with instructions to faithfully imitate Richard Cosway's detailed watercolor style of miniature painting. These delicate and beautiful miniatures, mostly portraits, often on ivory, were set into the covers or doublures of fine bindings and protected with thin panes of glass. Cosway bindings executed by other than the original collaborators (Stonehouse, Sotheran, Rivière, and Currie) are designated as "Cosway-style" bindings—still splendid productions. Curiously, the portrait inset on this copy is not of Byron, but rather of his close associate, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and is based on one of the few portraits of Shelley painted during his lifetime, by his friend Amelia Curran. Bookplate.

Spine very slightly toned. A splendid production in fine condition.