HUMPHREYS, Henry Noel. SHAKESPEARE. ~ Sentiments and Similes of William Shakespeare. A classified selection of similes, definitions, descriptions and other remarkable passages in the plays and poems of Shakespeare.
Heavily chromolithographed first page in colours and gold, pages printed in gold and black throughout, all with gold borders and large gold highlighted black initials letters. Pp. [viii], 100. 19 x 15 cm. 8vo., in a remarkable example of an ornate Victorian black papier maché binding incorporating the title in an elaborate structure on both sides, with an inlaid oval bust of Shakespeare on the upper cover in terracota, and an inlaid oval plaquette on the lower with the initials ‘W.S.’ entwined with laurel leaves, spine and edges of sides in black leather, gilt inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. A little rubbing and bumping but in remarkably fine example of an historically vulnerable binding with only minor restorations.
This book was produced by Humphries as a vehicle to demonstrate advances in book decoration and to showcase his studies in the ‘Art of Illumination’. “I have gathered together some of the gems of thought of our great poet, and endeavoured to range them worthily in a fitting casket - to enshrine them...in a reliquary as rich as a combination of the typographic and lithochromic arts could form”.
Papier maché was a short lived style of binding, mainly owing to its inherent weaknesses, weight and vulnerability. Here we have a remarkable survival - so Victorian - outside sombre, if very elaborate, and respectful of the Bard, and internally bright, vibrant and full of all the techniques mechanical book decoration could muster at the time.