The Prisoner of Chillon by Byron, Lord; Audsley, W.G. (Illuminations); Tymms, W.R. (Chromolithography) - 1865

London: Day & Son, 1865. Hardcover. Very good. 12.25" x 9", 20 chromolithograph leaves printed rectos only, in beautiful publisher's binding of elaborately decorated three-tone purple cloth with beveled edges, all edges gilt. Corners and spine ends rubbed, binding delicate but holding, foxing to some blank pages (front and rear flyleaves, a few versos of the plates), title page appears to have been reinserted at some point and has some glue staining at the gutter. The stunning chromolithographs were desiged by the Scottish architects and designers William James Audsely and George Ashdown Audsley and printed by W.R. Tymmes, one of the leading chromolithographers of the period. In an article on the Victorian Web website, Simon Cooke writes that Day and Son were "the most influential proponent of picture-books illustrated by chromolithographs in the period from the mid-1850s to the end of the 1860s. Tymms became the publisher's foremost technician, and all of the imprints of this period give his name a… Read More

[ London: Day and Son, 1865 ] First edition thus. The poem was originally published in 1816.. Original polychrome purple cloth decorated in gold, blue, and red. Expertly recased. . Quarto. [20] ff. chromolithograph plates (printed on one side only). Beautifully illuminated by Audsley with decorations by W.R. Tymms. Expertly recased. Slight rubbing to extremities. Faint contemporary ink signature to front flyleaf. A very good, remarkably clean and bright copy. McLean: "In 1865, Day & Son issued an edition of Byron's The Prisoner of Chillon… illuminated by the Audsleys, richly polychromatic, and richly muddled in its mixture of decorative styles, the total effect being most attractive," (Victorian Book Design, p. 133)