POEMS

Edinburgh: Printed by Turnbull and Spears for Otto Schulze & Co, September 1903. No. 25 OF 40 COPIES printed on Japanese Vellum. 208 x 176 mm. (8 3/4 x 7"). [v], 289, [1] pp., [1] leaf (colophon).
MOST ATTRACTIVE DARK BROWN CRUSHED MOROCCO, GILT, BY OTTO SCHULZE & CO. (stamp-signed on front turn-in), covers with complex strapwork frame, raised bands, spine compartments with lobed centerpiece, gilt lettering, gilt-ruled turn-ins, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. With woodcut white-vine border on title page and on the first page of three poems, large white-vine initial printed in red on title page, numerous six-line white-vine initials throughout. Printed in red and black. ◆Nearly invisible short scratch near head of front board, a couple of corners gently bumped, trivial internal imperfections, but A VERY FINE COPY with virtually no signs of use, inside or out.

This collection of poems by the great Romantic rebel is a strictly limited deluxe production from Edinburgh publisher Otto Schulze, clearly intended to capitalize on the allure of books produced by the great English private presses. Operating during the first 10 or 15 years of the 20th century, Schulze usually had his books printed by George Robb or, as here, Turnbull and Spears, with some copies then finely bound under his firm's name. Such bindings often were done for, rather than by, the publisher or bookseller whose name is stamp-signed on the volume, but since our volume says that the binding is by--and not for--Schulze, we can only assume that our publisher had an in-house binder. Whether in-house or outsourced, bindings signed by Schulze are consistently attractive but are not common: since 1975, ABPC has listed six such (morocco) bindings, two of them described as "elaborate" or "extra.".