THE SPLENDID KELMSCOTT SHAKESPEARE

SHAKESPEARE. The Poems of William Shakespeare. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1893. Octavo, original full limp vellum, yapp edges, silk ties, uncut and partly unopened. $9000.

The superb Kelmscott Press edition of Shakespeare’s poems, one of 500 copies printed by William Morris, in lovely original vellum binding. Beautifully printed in red and black type and decorated with woodcut borders and initials.

William Morris— Pre-Raphaelite painter, designer, architect, and printer— founded the Kelmscott Press, the first modern private press, in 1891. "Morris sought to revive what he saw as the purity of the first century of printing, and to produce what he described as books which 'would have a definite claim to beauty… and be easy to read" (Feather, 152). "Cockerell in 1898 described this volume as 'one of the rarest books issued from the Press' because of its popularity" (Peterson A11). Increasingly rare in the original binding. Ransom, Kelmscott:11.

Interior fine, mild soiling to original vellum, as often. A lovely copy.