ASHBEE, C.R. ~ From Whitechapel to Camelot.
No. 37 of 150 large paper copies. Illustrated by M-or-N with reproduced etchings. 26.5 x 20.5 cms. 4to., in the original red cloth with the carnation device of the Guild in white and green paint on the upper cover. Rather marked and stained but a very good association copy.
With a full page dedication poem of 31 lines in Ashbee’s hand and monogrammed by Ashbee in April 1898. The poem is written for and the book is inscribed to Austin Gomme, one of his architecture pupils.
The poem is genuinely and is an very affectionate ribbing of Gomme and all his foibles as a pupil - he “dawdles like a County Council”, has a “head stuffed full of quips and quizzes, Despite my most appalling thunders, He makes insufferable blunders”. He states that he is “Craziest of my pupils, I don’t profess to many scruples, But such an impudently dapper, Unconscionable whipper-snapper, Was never known in Architecture”. Ashbee adds at the end “I love him very much for all that”.
Inserted loose is a letter from Alan Crawford to a descendent of Austin Gomme who was clearly asking about the dedication and Austin’s career. Crawford suggests that Gomme was articled to Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft as an architecture apprentice for a bout 5 years in the 1890s, when this dedications was written.
The book was published by the Guild of Handicraft 6 years before Ashbee began his Essex House Press. Ashbee’s tale goes from the poverty stricken, fog bound streets of Victorian London to the ideal world of King Arthur.