[Rossetti, Dante Gabriel -Privately Printed] Hand and Soul, 1869

[London]: [Privatly Printed] Strangeways and Walden, 1869. First edition. First edition. Original light brown card wrappers with single printed rectangular border rule about 1/2 inch from outside edges along with the central title, on front cover. Half-title. 22pp. Last page with printed DANTE GABRIEL ROSSSETTI, 1850, at end, and Strangeways printer's imprint at bottom under a line. Excessively rare, in original state. Rossetti wrote to T.H. Hall Caine in April of 1880: "The time taken in composition [of 'Jenny'] reminds me of the fact (so long ago!) that I wrote the tale of 'Hand and Soul' (with the exception of an opening page or two) all in one night (truncated) in December 1849, beginning I suppose about 2 a.m. and ending about 7. In such a case a landscape and sky all unsurmised open gradually in the mind - a sort of spiritual 'Turner' among whose hills one ranges and in whose waters one strikes out at unknown liberty. But I have found this only in nightlong work which I have seldom attempted, for it leaves one entirely broken, and this state was mine when I described the like of it at the close of the story. Ah! once again, how long ago!" Separately printed at Rossetti's request after he decided it did not fit with the style of his forthcoming book, "Poems," in 1870. On 30 Aug. 1869 he wrote to Jane Morris: The work originally appeared in January 1850 number of the "The Germ," and was later set in type in 1869, at the behest of DGR with the intention of including it in his "Poems," published in 1870. However, he abandoned his plan to include this short manifesto on the Aesthetic and Decadent Movements in "Poems," and rather, William Michael had an unspecified number of copies printed-off for private use. Recent censuses have listed about 30 known copies, most in institutions. Less than 100 copies were printed under the direction of Rossetti's publisher, Ellis & Co. Covers slightly foxed, but an amazing survival, in the original printed brown card wrappers, a completely unsophisticated copy. (Inventory #: 4093)