Rossetti, Dante Gabriel

[Rossetti, Dante Gabriel- Large Paper Copy. On Handmade Whatman, 31 Copies Printed] Poems. A New Edition.

London: Ellis & White, 1881.

First edition. 4to. The Large Paper Issue, “A New Edition,” original light blue boards, whitish paper spine with label printed in three lines, all edges uncut. As per Colbeck, “This Large Paper issue, printed on handmade paper watermarked “Whatman,” was issued without certificate, but was limited to 31 copies. Untrimmed, deckled edges. A FINE COPY WITH ALL THE PAPER PRESENT ON THE SPINE, CORNERS STRAIGHT AND UNBRUISED, INTERNALLY PRISTINE. From “Rossetti Archive,’Jerome McGann comments on this important issue: “The impulse to bring out a new edition of his poetry probably began in late July 1879, when DGR read T. Hall Caine’s lecture on his writing in the text printed in New Monthly Magazine (4th series, I, July 1879). At that time DGR wrote to Jane Morris about his satisfaction that Caine was “enforcing my poetic claims”(Bryson and Troxell 105). Later in the Fall, he began to make revisions to “Sister Helen”(Bryson and Troxell 124-126). He was preoccupied with his painting work for the next year, but when J. A. Noble praised DGR as England’s finest living writer of sonnets (in an article on the sonnet in the Contemporary Review of August, 1880), the poet wrote to Caine that he was “very proud to think that after my small and solitary book has been a good many years published and several out of print, it yet meets with such ardent upholdings by young and sincere men, like Caine and Caine’s friend Noble (letter to Caine, quoted in Lewis 203).’The printer was Strangeways and Sons. Without a doubt far and awy the finest copy seen in many years, in its original state.

Price: $2,850.00   Item #3948