Specimens of Penmanship written by Mas. F.B. Leach at the High School, Oldham, Conducted by the Rev. Hugh Tait, B.A. (two volumes)

Leeds: Bean, Stationer, 1865. Two highly decorative penmanship albums produced by a Victorian schoolboy in Oldham, outside Manchester. Each album contains six examples. The first volume includes three poems and two pages of neatly copied practice sentences: "Eminence demands our most earnest endeavours" and "Magnanimous persons deserve great commendation." The final page contains the sample text of a promissory note, dated February 5, 1865. The second volume includes three poems ("Flowers," "Liberty," and "Various Stanzas on Spring"), each with a hand-colored printed heading, and three practice sentences: "Endeavour to merit esteem and commendation;" "Procrastination often ruins commercial transactions;" and "Concealed resentment is sometimes most dangerous." Unusually handsome examples of Victorian educational practice. Two oblong folio volumes, measuring 9.25 x 12 inches: [16]. Original glazed moiré card wrappers with gilt-embossed card frames and scenic chromolithographs (windmills in a field, a lakeside castle) mounted to covers. Tissue-guarded engraved pictorial title pages, featuring scenes of Cambridge, with Leach's name added in manuscript in colored inks. Six leaves of penmanship specimens and calligraphic flourishes in each volume, executed on rectos only. Three hand-colored printed headings in the second volume. Light shelfwear, tissue guard foxed in Volume I.