first edition Decorated Cloth
1885 · Boston (also New York)
by Talbot, Eleanor W., illustrated
Boston (also New York): Lee and Shepard (also Charles T. Dillingham), 1885. First Edition. Decorated Cloth. Very Good. Oblong, 24.5 by 17 cm, 9.75 by 7.75 inches. Unpaginated, with sixteen chromolithographic plates, two with movable doors revealing things behind, and each of the plates accompanied by two text leaves, one carrying an apercu of verse from a famous poet and the other with a beauty hint or an allusion to some aspect of a woman's toilette. The book is a beautiful production, and while it fits squarely in the nineteenth century tradition of feminine gift books, it also stands apart from the genre in its shape, its focus, its tasteful arrangement of objects in the plates and then how the plates relate to the text. Arguably this is a gift book that can be viewed as a continuation of the then moribund emblem book tradition. Light wear to cloth by spine extremities and board corners. One chromo plate with edge roughness, tiny chip and repaired small closed tear. A light quarter sized edge dampstain on a few leaves. Flap edges tend to have minor wear.
(Inventory #: 004929)