HUBBARD, Elbert and Alice. ~ Justinian and Theodora. A Drama Being a Chapter of History and the One Gleam of Light During the Dark Ages.
No. 71 of 106 copies printed on genuine Japan vellum and signed by Elbert Hubbard. Double title-page decorated in black, red and yellow, and matching headpieces and colophon in black and yellow. Two signed portraits of Elbert and Alice Hubbard. First Edition. 8vo., 19.9 x 14.9 cm, 107, [2] pp, original binding of half lilac goatskin, suminagashi paper covered sides and endpapers, spine decorated in gilt iwth flowers, leaves, tendrils and dots, gilt lettereing, gilt rules on upper and lower covers, with the original card marbled paper covered drop-over box, lined with felt and with the original paper spine label. Very mild fading to spine, otherwise a splendid copy.
Elbert Green Hubbard (1856-1915) was a successful soap salesman for J.D. Larkin & Co. in Buffalo, whose life was changed on a visit to England and a meeting with William Morris. Returning to the States, he wrote of his travels and set up a press, the Roycroft, in emulation of the Kelmscott Press. In 1895 he founded a community, the Roycrofters, at East Aurora. Besides printing a long list of titles, they also operated a fine bindery, a furniture shop and shops producing modelled leather and hammered copper goods. In 1904 Hubbard married Alice Moore, a school teacher and noted feminist. In 1915 the two of them went down on the Lusitania.