The Great Book of Thomas Trevilian : A Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Wormsley Library. [ 2 volumes, complete set ]

Printed for presentation to the Roxburghe Club, London, first edition, 2000. 2 vols, red buckram, leather spine-labels, top edges gilt, large folio, slipcased, 49 cm,. xix, 181, [2], 48 pages of plates (some in colour) + 320 pages of colour facsimile. Thomas Trevilian's Great Book is a remarkable assemblage of drawings and texts made around 1616 by a man who was then 68 and probably a draughtsman for professional embroiderers, since many of his drawings are based on needlework patterns. His gloriously colourful miscellany has 12 main sections: 1 Almanacs: calendar, astronomical and topographical material (pp 1-90); ; 2 Old Testament history from the Creation and Flood to Josiah (91-144); 3 Kings and Queens of England from Albion to James I and Scotland from Robert II (145-246); 4 The Godly reformers: lives and portraits (247-264); 5 'Princeps Proditorum': verses and portraits of Papist traitors including the Gunpowder Plotters (265-272); 6 Sheriffs and Lord Mayors of London (273-312); 7 Pieties, Parables, New Testament scenes, genre sets: Sibyls, Muses, Virtues and Vices, Four Contients, etc. (313-524); 8 Sets of calligraphic initials and texts (525-572); 9 'The Green Dragon for Joyners and gardners': ornaments and knotwork patterns (573-654); 10 'Pottes' and pictures of flowers and trees: the illustrations from Fuchs and the text from Turner (655-879); 11 Beasts: from Topsell (880-938); ; 12 'Drawen Workes': pen-and-ink designs for black-work embroidery (939-1028). Contents: Volume One: Foreword; Preface; Introduction; 1 Thomas Trevilian's Two Books; 2 Pious Imagination: Continuity and Change; 3 Secular Images and Sources; 4 City and Country: Weavers and Embroidere; 5 Thomas Trevilian; 6 Original or Copy?; 7 Conclusion; Appendixes; 1 Contents of Thomas Trevilian's Great Book; 2 Prints Recorded in the Stationers' Company; 3 Walter Dight's Career and Publications; Index; Supplementary Plates; Volume Two; The Facsimile. As New in the slipcases, which have a few very minor indentations.