Works of Matthew Arnold, The

  • London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, Smith, Elder and Company, 1903
By ARNOLD, Matthew
London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, Smith, Elder and Company, 1903. Ah, love, let us be true To one another..."

Mathew Arnold's Edition de Luxe in an Elegant Binding by Rivière for Sotheran's

ARNOLD, Matthew. The Works of Matthew Arnold. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, Smith, Elder and Company, 1903-1904.

Edition de Luxe, limited to 775 copies. Fifteen octavo volumes (9 x 6 inches; 229 x 153 mm.). Title-pages printed in red and black throughout, with engraved frontispiece portrait in Volume I. Some occasional light foxing throughout.

Elegantly bound ca. 1904 by [Rivière] for Sotheran's in contemporary three-quarter purple morocco over green cloth boards, covers ruled in gilt, smooth spines richly paneled and tooled in gilt, each volume with two tan morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, green paper endpapers, top edges gilt, others uncut. With the armorial bookplate of Herbert Goldsmith Squiers on the front pastedown of each volume. The spines uniformly mellowed to brown, as often encountered with purple morocco, otherwise an exceptionally handsome and well-preserved near fine set.

A refined Edition de Luxe of the collected writings of one of the defining literary voices of the Victorian age. Poet, critic, essayist, and cultural commentator, Matthew Arnold occupies a central place in nineteenth-century English letters, balancing Romantic sensibility with intellectual rigor and moral inquiry. His poetry - especially The Scholar-Gipsy, Thyrsis, and the immortal Dover Beach - remains among the most enduring achievements of Victorian literature, while his critical writings profoundly shaped modern ideas of culture, education, and society.

This set bears the distinguished provenance of Herbert G. Squiers, American diplomat, soldier, and noted collector. Serving as United States minister to Cuba and later Panama during a formative moment in American foreign policy, Squiers assembled important libraries and collections of decorative arts, lending this beautifully bound set an additional layer of historical and bibliophilic interest.

Details

Title

Works of Matthew Arnold, The

Author

ARNOLD, Matthew

Condition

Unknown

Publisher

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, Smith, Elder and Company, 1903


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