The Seasons
- Edinburgh: James Ballantyne, 1809
Edinburgh: James Ballantyne, 1809. Twelvemo (6 3/8 x 3 3/4 inches; 163 x 95 mm.). [iv], [i]-xxii, [2, contents, verso blank], [1]-262 pp. Including engraved vignette title. Bound ca. 1809 in the style of or possibly by Taylor & Hessey. Full green straight-grain morocco, covers elaborately bordered in gilt with gilt floral pieces. Spine with three wide raised bands, decoratively tooled in gilt in compartments and lettered in gilt on the raised bands. Gilt decorated board-edges, gilt ruled turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Original booksellers printed ticket "Sold at/Barratt's Library./Bond Street, Bath." on front paste-down. With a very fine contemporary fore-edge painting of 'Westminster Abbey from the River Thames' possibly by the Taylor & Hessey artist.
Scottish poet James Thomson's The Seasons is a four-part pastoral poem, inspired by Milton's narrative blank verse, consisting of Winter (1726), Summer (1727), Spring (1728) and Autumn (1730). This edition brings all four together with a brief biography of the author. The poem would inspire painters and musicians, including Gainsborough and Bach, and would be translated into French and German; it was also at the center of in two legal disputes over publication copyrights.
The firm Taylor and Hessey was at its height between 1808-1823, working in both publishing and fine bindings. Their work is usually identifiable from their use of colored Morocco and gilt-stamp name on the foredge of their book boards. Taylor & Hessey also employed a foredge painter, whose identity remains lost, but whose work predominantly features buildings and landscapes. Of the twenty-four books in American libraries studied by Weber, only one exception can be found in the “copy of Mrs. Tighe’s Psyche (London, 1811), on the fore-edge of which ‘the Marlborough Gem’ is painted” (Weber).
Provenance: Weber. 1001 Fore-Edge Paintings. Maine, 1949. P. 151; Sold by Maggs of London to Mrs. Estelle Doheny June 7th, 1949 (her acquisition number " 6297" in ink on verso of rear blank leaf); Catalogue of the Books and Manuscripts in the Estelle Doheny Collection, part III, Los Angeles, 1955.
Scottish poet James Thomson's The Seasons is a four-part pastoral poem, inspired by Milton's narrative blank verse, consisting of Winter (1726), Summer (1727), Spring (1728) and Autumn (1730). This edition brings all four together with a brief biography of the author. The poem would inspire painters and musicians, including Gainsborough and Bach, and would be translated into French and German; it was also at the center of in two legal disputes over publication copyrights.
The firm Taylor and Hessey was at its height between 1808-1823, working in both publishing and fine bindings. Their work is usually identifiable from their use of colored Morocco and gilt-stamp name on the foredge of their book boards. Taylor & Hessey also employed a foredge painter, whose identity remains lost, but whose work predominantly features buildings and landscapes. Of the twenty-four books in American libraries studied by Weber, only one exception can be found in the “copy of Mrs. Tighe’s Psyche (London, 1811), on the fore-edge of which ‘the Marlborough Gem’ is painted” (Weber).
Provenance: Weber. 1001 Fore-Edge Paintings. Maine, 1949. P. 151; Sold by Maggs of London to Mrs. Estelle Doheny June 7th, 1949 (her acquisition number " 6297" in ink on verso of rear blank leaf); Catalogue of the Books and Manuscripts in the Estelle Doheny Collection, part III, Los Angeles, 1955.