Illustrations of Masonry. **Fine Binding by Hering**

57 Paternoster Row, London: G. and T. Wilkie, 1801 Tenth Edition with Considerable Additions. Hard cover, 8vo in black, straight-grain morocco with five gilt tooled symbols of masonic decoration to both boards (the blazing star, square-and-compass, flames, crescent moon-and-stars, and a square-and-blazing sun); this lies within a frame of a gilt ruled intersecting diamond and rectangle, the banding of which is rolled in blind with vine leaves. A gothic-style band of gilt tracery with quatrefoils decorates the outer edge of both boards, with double gilt banding and narcissus-like flowers stamped at the corner intersections. Four double-bands to the spine contain five compartments with the title, and square-compass-banner-on-pole symbols. A.e.g. Inside, dove grey moire silk doublures feature gilt lightning bolts at the four inner corners; the outer corners have four additional symbols (crescent-moon-and-stars, compass-rule-and-metronome, a geometrically detailed circle, and skull-and crossbones.) The wide dentelle is also decorated with a gilt banding of florentine arabesques and flowers. The book comes with a bespoke black cloth-covered clamshell box with gilt title to outer face. **Condition: at least Very Good Plus. Some wear of the gilt at corners and fore edge of top board, slight wear to joints. Front hinge cracked, yet holding firm. Rear board with one minor scuff. Edge Gilt a bit dulled. Inside, pages are gently age toned, with intermittent mild foxing, some finger soiling at page margins, and the odd ink blotch. An imperfect erasure to prelim. Former owners' names and initials to title page, one in ink dated 1821. ** Edinburgh-born Author William Preston (1742-1818) was a masonic scholar, who from the age of six attended the Royal High School and studied classical languages, among other topics. Orphaned at nine, he became the ward of the Edinburgh author, publisher and newpaper editor Thomas Ruddiman (1674-1757), whose brother, Walter Ruddiman, took him on as a printer's apprentice. Preston relocated to London around 1760. There he was instrumental in the formation of a new masonic lodge, the Caledonian Lodge No. 325, for whose sake he began studying Masonic history and preparing lectures to illuminate the members. (ODNB) ** The first edition of his oft-republished "Illustrations of Masonry" was released in 1769. Reprintings and emendations of what became a standard work on masonic customs, symbols, and ideas were re-released at least into the 1850's, both in Britain and in the United States. **The bookbinder information appears as a small printed paper label affixed to the verso of the ffep.: " Bound by/ Hering/ 9 Newman St." Ramsden lists four family members of the Hering family as bookbinders at that address (p. 81), so it seems probable the father at least oversaw the work in hand before his death in 1815. The design characteristic of five detailed pictorial symbols distributed around the boards in gilt is also seen in another Charles Hering signed binding shown in Ramsden's Plate X1 , (p. 50) The Göttigen, Germany-born master bookbinder Charles Hering (1763-1815) was working in London by 1794. He soon gained the business of the 2nd Earl Spencer, and his friends, including Lord Byron, and was called the heir to the mantel of seventeenth- century London bookbinder, Roger Payne. Like Payne, he often employed the use of straight-grain morocco over other types of leather. The gothic banding with the quatrefoils on our book looks similar to, if not identical, to that pictured in Fig. 2 in Judith G. Marks's article "Bookbinding Practices of the Hering Family, 1794-1844," originally published in The British Library Journal, (Vol.6, No.1 Spring 1980, pp. 44-60.) R. Ackerman's "The History of Westminster Abbey," London 1812) luxuriously bound by Charles Hering in red velvet and silver gilt, (shown in Mark's article on page 51) was extolled by Thomas Didbin as having "nothing to equal it in any cabinet in Europe." (p. 50) The high standard of our volume's complicated and symbolic design makes this a really noteworthy example of the work of this master craftsman of early nineteenth century London. . Tenth Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good Plus.