John Keats, His Life and Poetry, His Friends Critics and After-Fame

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1917. A Very Fine Cosway-Style Binding
Sidney Colvin's Life and Poetry of John Keats

[COSWAY-STYLE BINDING]. BAYNTUN RIVIÈRE, binders. KEATS, John. COLVIN, Sidney. John Keats, His Life and Poetry, His Friends Critics and After-Fame. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1917.

First edition. Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 7/16 inches; 213 x 138 mm.). xviii, errata slip, 598p. Tipped-in color portrait frontispiece and twelve full page illustrations including a facsimile letter.

Bound ca. 1940 by Bayntun Rivière in a Cosway-style binding of full red crushed morocco with marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. The upper cover with a mounted portrait of young Keats on ivory under beveled glass, the portrait surrounded with a gilt frame of various flowers and holly in gilt, the remainder of the covers with vertical lines, the spine with gilt tiles and floral panel ornaments. A very fine copy, housed in a cloth box.

A fine Cosway-Style binding ca. 1940 by Bayntun Rivière (stamp-signed in gilt on front turn-in). Full red crushed levant morocco, both covers with a geometical design in gilt. The upper cover with a fine oval portrait miniature set under glass of John Keats surround by an elaborate gilt floral design. Spine with five raised bands decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt. Decorative gilt board-edges and turn-ins, Cockerel liners and endleaves, all edges gilt.

A very fine example. Housed in it's original felt-lined red cloth clamshell case, spine lettered in gilt.

"To the name and work of Keats our best critics and scholars have in recent years paid even closer attention and warmer homage. But their studies have for the most part been specialized and scattered, and there does not yet exist any one book giving a full and connected account of his life and poetry together in the the light of our present knowledge and with help of all the available material. Ever since it was my part, some thirty years ago, to contribute the volume on Keats to the series of short studies edited by Lord Morley, (the English Men of Letters series), I have hoped one day to return to the subject and do my best to supply this want... The following pages., timed to appear in the hundredth year after the publication of Keat's first volume, are the result..." (Preface).

Sir Sidney Colvin (1845-1927) was an English curator and literary and art critic, part of the illustrious Anglo-Indian Colvin family. He is primarily remembered for his friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson and his Life of John Keats.