HERMES, Gertrude. GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS. ~ The Garden of Caresses.
Translated from the Arabic into French by Franz Toussaint and then rendered into English by Christopher Sandford. 8 copper engraved erotic headpieces by Gertrude Hermes. Title printed in green and black. One of 275 numbered copies, this no. 225. Printed in Gill Felicity Italic on Millbourn paper. 8vo., original vellum backed blue cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine, top edge gilt, others uncut, with the university crest of Reading University stamped on the upper cover and a prize label on the front pastedown. Rubbed at edges, endpapers a little browned, otherwise good.
The sensually joyful love poems were written by a Moor in Spain in the 10th century. Hermes’s engravings for the Garden of Caresses are particularly sensuous and beautiful.
Given as the 1935-6 Wells Prize in Art to Amy Green by the University of Reading.