VALE PRESS. MARLOWE, Christopher & CHAPMAN, George. ~ Hero and Leander.
7 wood engravings, plus title page border and decorated initials cut on wood by Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. One of 220 copies.Printed in Caslon type on Ricketts' rose and 'VP' Vale Press monogram watermarked paper, 8vo., original full vellum binding designed by Ricketts and bound by Leighton Son & Hodge, blind and gilt stamped on front and back with ‘Pearl and Thread’ design, the corners of each side tooled in gilt with a violet leaf, and with the entwined monogram for Shannon and Ricketts in the lower panel with the date, Ricketts monogram at the bottom of each side with the binder’s monogram on the opposite side, spine lettered in gilt with Vale Press monogram at the base. With the dark spotting common to this type of paper on pp. 70-71, 74-5, 78-9, 82-3, very slight bowing to boards, otherwise a very good copy.
Ricketts took Marlowe’s achingly sensual and romantic text from the first edition published by Edward Blount in 1598, reprinting the dedication to Thomas Walsingham. On his death Marlowe had left two cantos and it was later finished by George Chapman with four more cantos. Ricketts prefaces this printing with an eight line quotation from Swinburne’s prelude to ‘Tristram of Lyonesse’ celebrating Marlowe’s poem.
One of the three books put together at the home of Ricketts and Shannon in The Vale, Chelsea prior to the official establishment of The Vale Press in 1896.
With the ex libris of Doris Louis Benz and of Henry Nazeby Harrington on the front pastedown.