The Sensitive Plant

London/Philadelphia: William Heinemann/J.B. Lippincott Co, 1911. First Thus. First U.K. Robinson-illustrated Deluxe edition, a Heinemann "Xmas Art Book" that originally sold for 15 shillings. Publisher's deluxe binding of full vellum over boards, front cover and spine elaborately stamped and lettered in gilt, pictorial end-papers, top edge gilt. In the scarce original pictorial dust jacket with just some very minor rubbing at extremities. Small, neat and inoffensive ink stamped signature on half-title and title-page. Quarto (10 3/8 x 7 3/4 in; 264 x 195 mm.). Collating xii, [4], 17-127, [1]. Eighteen full color tipped-in plates, including frontispiece, with captioned tissue guards. Small color, halftone, or black and white (some full page) illustrations to each page. Housed in the original green cardboard slipcase with the color illustration from page 61 on front panel. A tight, bright, and Fine copy of this generously produced volume.

"No more tastefully illustrated book of verse could be desired than the elaborately artistic edition of Shelley's Sensitive Plant, edited by Mr. Edmund Gosse, illustrated with much richness of coloring and gracefulness of design by Mr. Charles Robinson, and imported by the Lippincott Co. Mr. Gosse's introduction throws new light on the ' Lady, the wonder of her kind,' who played the part of 'an Eve in this Eden ' where grew the sensitive plant. Drawing upon Medwin's notes to a never-published second edition of his life of the poet, he tells us that this paragon of her sex was a certain Countess of Mountcashell, an Irish lady about fifty years of age, of sufficient unconventionality to be welcomed by Shelley and his company as a congenial spirit. The notes on this lady and the editor's gleaning of facts concerning the mimosa pudica, or sensitive plant, celebrated bythe poet, are interesting. The illustrations, large and small, accompanying the slender thread of text, form the conspicuous feature of the book, and make it one of the most sumptuous gift volumes of the year. The cover design is a thing of beauty" (The Dial 1911).