Love Poems from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens (Signed limited edition)

London: Pirvately reprinted, 1886. Limited edition. Fine. Number 49 of 50 copies on Japan Paper, signed by the editor, B.B. Haggin. Small quarto (8 9/16 x 6 9/16 inches; 217 x 167 mm.). [iv], [117], [3, blank] pp. Original stiff paper wrappers decorated in gold bound in, and illustrated with very attractive, engraved head and tail-pieces. Additionally inscribed on a front blank leaf "Compliments of the Editor/B.B. Haggin/March 27th, 1892." Bound ca. 1892 by Charles Meunier (stamp-signed in gilt on lower turn-in). Full rose colored crushed morocco, each cover richly and decoratively bordered in gilt surrounding a rectangular foliate frame with sixteen flowers inlaid in black morocco and fourteen leaves inlaid in green morocco. Spine with five raised bands and five inlaid black morocco flowers, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments in a matching design, decorative gilt board-edges, wide gilt decorated turn-ins, blue silk liners and end-leaves, marbled end-papers, all edges gilt. Housed in a felt-lined dark blue cloth clamshell case, spine with leather label, lettered in gilt. A spectacular binding on a beautifully printed book.

Luís Vaz de Camoens (c. 1524-1580), often Camoens, is lauded as Portugal's most significant poet. A prolific writer of both epic and lyrical verse, he ranks him amongst the other European literary greats including Dante, Shakespeare, or Milton. Despite his fame, surprisingly little can be confirmed about his life resulting in "[s]uccessive biographers have woven the few concrete facts known about Camões's life into a bewildering complexity of fantasy and theory that is unsupported by concrete documentary evidence" (Britanica). While some of his poetry was lost during his lifetime, Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads) remains a classic. Here this lovely collection presents romantic verse from the beloved poet.

The talented Charles Meunier (1865-1940) was first apprenticed to a book binder at eleven years old. After training with Marius-Michel, he began his own binder in 1885, where he sought to be innovative and nontraditional. "... Drawing on traditional and modern techniques and forms of decoration, Meuniere mixed classical punches... with newly fashionable incised and modeled leather panels. His output was prodigious; by 1897 he had produced roughly six hundred bindings" (Art Nouveau and Art Deco Bookbinding). Fine.