KELMSCOTT PRESS. MEINHOLD, William. ~ Sidonia the Sorceress, translated by Francesca Speranza, Lady Wilde.
One of 300 copies printed on paper (there were also 10 copies printed on vellum). Border, three-quarter and half border and 604 six- and ten-line initial letters, all by William Morris, engraved on wood by W.H. Hooper et al, the initial letters then being electroplated, woodcut press device on colophon, leaf paragraph marks throughout. Printed in red and black in Golden type on hand-made Batchelor Flower paper. Large 4to., original limp vellum with all the blue silk ties, yapp edges, title in gilt on spine in Troy type. A very good bright copy, with only mild browning to edges, slight rippling to bottom edge of the vellum.
The text is a translation from Meinhold's German by Francesca Speranza, Lady Wilde, the mother of Oscar Wilde.
Morris described the book in the announcement of its publication: "an Historical Romance, based more or less on fact, concerning the Witch Fever that afflicted Northern Europe during the latter half of the 15th & first half of the 16th centuries...written by..Meinhold, a Lutheran minister, dwelling in the island of Rugen, off the shore of Pomerania....The result of his life and literary genius was the production of two books: "The Amber Witch" & "Sidonia", both of which..are not mere antiquarian studies, but presentations of events, often tragic....Sidonia is a masterpiece...it was a great favourite with the more literary part of the pre-Raphaelite artists in the earlier days of that movement."
Interestingly Aubrey Beardsley prepared a drawing of Sidonia which was intended as a frontispiece which he showed to Morris in 1892. Morris was so discouraging that Beardsley abandoned the atttempt and thereafter expressed great hostility towards Morris and the Kelmscott Press.