KELMSCOTT PRESS Froissart Jean The Chronicles of Fraunce In

Sale 2140 - Lot 69

Price Realized: $ 3,600

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000

(KELMSCOTT PRESS.) Froissart, Jean. The Chronicles of Fraunce, Inglande and Other Places Adjoynynge. Two trial pages of the projected edition. 420x563 mm. Large folio, 2 conjugate leaves, printed in Chaucer type in black and red (headings in Troy type), one page with full woodcut border incorporating 3 armorial bearings and a large initial capital "T" by C. E. Keates; the other page with broad armorial border at the bottom of the page and a single large initial "F" by W. Spielmeyer; later hand-coloring to borders and initials, faint dampstaining to bottom margin, barely touching image, remnants of mounting adhesive on verso. Hammersmith, September 1897 [issued October ]

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one of 160 copies on vellum. "It was the intention of Mr. Morris to make this edition of what was since his college days almost his favourite book, a worthy companion to the Chaucer. It was to have been in two volumes folio, with new cusped initials and heraldic ornament throughout . . . [and] a large frontispiece designed by Burne-Jones . . . Meanwhile the printing of the Chaucer had begun & it was not feasible to carry on two folios at the same time . . . Froissart again comes under the heading of `in Preparation' in the lists from Dec. 1. 1894 to June 1896. In the Prospectus for the Shepheardes Calendar, dated No. 12, 1896 it is announced as abandoned . . ."--Cockerell 46. Before the type was broken up, on Dec. 24, 1896, 32 copies of sixteen of these pages were printed and given to friends of Morris, whose recent death made the book's completion impossible. This prompted the idea of printing these trial proofs for wider distribution. Peterson A46; Tomkinson, page 120.