Specimens of English Prose Style, From Malory to Macaulay [Percy Lancelot Babington copy; J.P. Gray and Son Binding]

London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1885. Very Good. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1885. Limited Large Paper Edition, numbered 43 of 50 copies and signed "Charles Whittingham & Co." (the Chiswick Press). Bound by J.P. Gray and Son, Cambridge, with binder stamp at bottom of front pastedown. Bookplate of Percy Lancelot Babington, Esquire of Cossington in County Leicester on front pastedown.

Large octavo; xlvi, 367pp. Brown paper-covered boards with blue morocco spine and corners. Gilt lettering to spine and gilt to top page edges. Boards are square with light bumping to corners, light scuffing down joints, and some general scratches and smudges to paper. Front and back boards open easily but binding is secure. Some offsetting on front free endpaper of bookplate opposite, else pages unmarked.

Percy Lancelot Babington (1877-1950) was a lecturer in literature at Cambridge and final heir of the Cossington Estate. He is noted now for his interest in the small, clandestine, and variously aristocratic group of gay poets known as the Uranians, especially for his writings and bibliography of John Addington Symonds. He also edited a remembrance of C.H.O. Daniel with a bibliography of The Daniel Press, as well as a small bibliography of books about cats. Babington never married, and the Cossington estate was sold off sometime around his death.

This copy most recently from the personal library of journalist William Safire, but with none of his ownership marks or plates.