Richard BradleyBiblio.com
The Tragic Mary.
1890156421London: George Bell and Sons 1890. The real woman of magical nature must remain undiscovered and triumphant First edition first impression trade issue in the scarce glassine jacket. The play published under the pseudonym "Michael Field" by Edith Emma Cooper and her aunt and sometime lover Katharine Harris Bradley tells of the reign and fall of Mary Queen of Scots. There was also a limited issue of 60 copies bound in vellum. Selwyn Image 1849-1930 designed the binding for this title and his regal blooming thistles are an entirely appropriate example of his fin-de-siècle decorative art. The borders incorporate Mary's motto "En ma fin est mon commencement" "In my end is my beginning". An artist designer and poet Image was published in The Savoy and was the seventh Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford from 1910-16. Oscar Wilde considered The Tragic Mary one of the two most beautiful books of the nineteenth century "in appearance" quoted in Hadjiafxendi p. 243 the other being Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems 1870. Cooper and Bradley acknowledge in their Preface both the necessity and futility of dramatizing Mary's life; "the Queen herself lies sculptured in Westminster Abbey waiting with the serenity of patience a judgement other than that of men. Yet we are not permitted to withhold our human verdicts if she is to live as a presence in our midst. our beliefs are but conjectures and the real woman of magical nature must remain undiscovered and triumphant" Preface. Octavo. Original brown paper-covered boards spine and covers lettered in black covers illustrated in black with blossoming thistles and crown motifs designed by Selwyn Image edges uncut. With original glassine dust jacket and later handmade paper dust jacket. Two previous booksellers' notes loosely inserted. Small mark to spine a little foxing and offsetting to endpapers. A near-fine copy unopened in sharp glassine spine panel a little toned trivial chips to head of spine panel and corners a few marks to panels flaps a touch creased. Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi & Patricia Zakreski Crafting the Woman Professional in the Long Nineteenth Century 2016. hardcover
Peter Harrington · Royaume-Uni750,00 £GB≈ 856,35 €
