THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE BY HIS GREAT-GRANDSON, CRESACRE MORE

London: William Pickering, 1828. First Pickering Edition. ONE OF 12 LARGE PAPER COPIES. 230 x 140 mm. (9 x 5 1/2"). lxiv, 376 pp.With a biographical preface, notes, and other illustrations, by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A.
ESPECIALLY ATTRACTIVE MAROON MOROCCO, GILT, BY CHAMBOLLE-DURU (stamp-signed on front turn-in), covers with French fillet borders, raised bands, spine compartments with central flower bouquet, floral spray cornerpieces, gilt lettering, densely gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. With coat of arms on title page, engraved frontispiece portrait after Holbein, and a woodcut of the More home, Barnborough, in the text. Keynes, p. 69; Lowndes II, 1603. ◆Spine and thin strip at top of front board sunned to brown, but AN ESPECIALLY FINE COPY, clean, fresh, and bright internally with extremely ample margins, in a lustrous binding with few signs of wear.

This is a handsomely bound copy of the biography of the author of "Utopia" and a major figure in the political, ecclesiastical, and intellectual history of his time. A friend of Erasmus and a believer in church reform, Thomas More (1478-1535), served Henry VIII as chancellor, disagreed with the king's severance of ties with the Catholic Church, and was executed for his refusal to acknowledge Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England. First printed in Douai between 1626 and 1631 without explicit attribution of authorship, this memoir had a rather vague original preface that gave the impression its author was More's great-grandson and namesake Thomas (1565-1625). Our edition sets the record straight, properly crediting another great-grandson, Cresacre More (1572-1649). DNB speculates that Cresacre, a recusant perhaps fearing retaliation, deliberately obfuscated the issue. An ardent Catholic, Cresacre dedicated his work to the French queen of Charles I, Henriette Marie. The biography, which includes a number of letters written by More to his family, has always been considered a principal source for More's career. The binding here is a perfect example of the kind of beautifully done French classical work produced for an extended period under the name of Chambolle. A rough contemporary of, and certainly the equal in technique to, binders like Trautz, Marius-Michel Père, Lortic, and Cuzin, the elder Chambolle served his apprenticeship under Hippolyte Duru and later formed a partnership with him, as is clear from the stamped signature on our two volumes. Duncan & De Bartha says that this collaboration began "at some point" and implies that the partnership was formed sometime after Chambolle established a premises at 20 rue de Savoie in 1873. Chambolle's son continued the business when his father retired in 1898; according to Duncan and De Bartha, although the firm "showed a cautious recognition of the . . . preoccupation with Art Nouveau," classical work was always the mainstay of the Chambolle bindery. Our Large Paper Copy is 20 mm. taller than the regular edition, as recorded by Keynes, and the spacious margins set off Pickering's printing very nicely..