Friendship and Love from the Philosophers

London: Arthur L. Humphreys, 1909. First thus. Fine. An exquisite binding in full crushed pink morocco by Riviere & Sons from designs by J.H. Stonehouse (stamped on the front turn-in). No artist attributed, but the miniature is quite probably the work of Miss C. B. Currie [Caroline Billin Curry] (1849 - 1940). Exceptional gilt-work on the front board with repeating geometric patterns of rules and dots to form an eight-sided star (each with a green morocco inlay) the center of which is the charming miniature portrait of a woman carrying a basket of flowers. Spine compartments decorated in similar style. Top edge gilt. Dark green silk endpapers. A code written on the title page in blue ink, otherwise clean and unmarked. A fine copy overall and an exceptional example of the Riviere bindery's true Cosway binding.

This collection brings together essays on love and friendship by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Percy Shelley, Walter Savage Landor, Francis Bacon, Michel de Montaigne, and Edward Bulwer Lytton. In the first of two essays on love, Shelley writes, "What is love?...It is that powerful attraction towards all that we conceive, or fear, or hope beyond ourselves, when we find within our own thoughts the chasm of an insufficient void, and seek to awaken in all things that we are, a community with what we experience within ourselves...This is Love. This is the bond and the sanction which connects not only man with man, but with everything which exists." The timeless words of these authors are here presented in a beautiful binding that suits a grand celebration of romance, companionship, community, and family. Fine.