The Lazy Lays and Prose Imaginings Inscribed to American Medium Mary Hollis Billings
187730067London: William H. Harrison 1877. Very Good. London: William H. Harrison 1877. First Edition. Octavo 18.5cm.; publisher's purple pictorial cloth designed by Florence Claxton elaborately embossed in gilt and black all edges gilt black glazed endpapers; iv5-156pp. Cloth a bit scuffed and worn along extremities with brief exposure at corners and spine ends spine cloth faded brief split to rear joint rear hinge cracked but holding textblock slightly shaken in binding else a Very Good bright example. <br /> Inscribed on front flyleaf to the American medium "Mrs. Hollis Billing With the kind regards of The Author / November 1879. London."<br /> <br /> Scarce collection of humorous poems and vignettes by the British author and editor of The Spiritualist. Running in the London Spiritualist circles Harrison would presumably have made the acquaintance of the inscribee American medium Mary Hollis Billing and her husband who served on the 1877 Committee of the Theosophical Society in London. <br /> <br /> Contents only glancingly Spiritualist though true to form the imprint provides the publication date based on different calendars: A.D. 1877 Popular Chronology; A.M. 5877 Torquemada; A.M. 50800077 Huxley. Like many Spiritualists of the day Harrison was especially interested in photography and several pieces in this volume relate to the art and science of the form. Notably "The Lay of the Photographer" describes in nineteen stanzas the chemical transformations of pyroxylin iodine and silver to develop photographs. Needless to say the poem is not very good.<br /> <br /> Advertisements for the present work attribute the cover design to British illustrator cartoonist and fringe Pre-Raphaelite Florence Claxton 1838-1920. One contemporary reviewer aptly describes the book as "handsomely-bound and griffin-guarded" Liverpool Daily Courier. William H. Harrison unknown
Capitol Hill Books, ABAA · États-Unis1 250,00 $US≈ 1 057,63 €
