KELMSCOTT PRESS. ~ Specimen leaf of Vitas Patrum
1p. on one leaf (p.75), verso blank. Printed in Golden type on Flower paper with a six-line initial and a shoulder title. 29 x 21 cm. Soft fold marks where the sheet has been folded into 4, untrimmed with a couple of small nicks to the left hand side, not affecting text. At the very base of the sheet in the margin are the words “How do you like this? one of Morris’s Kelmscott Press books” in ink.
Specimen pages were distributed by Morris to booksellers, customers and friends of the Press. This specimen poage accoumpanied 500 copies of the prospectus of Vitas Patrum which was probably issued in late Feb. 1894.
Vitas Patrum was a book which never made it to the Press. The editor was going to be F.S. Ellis who wrote in an announcement from the press in Feb. 1894: “This work, written by St. Jerome in the fourth century, was translated into English by William Caxton...[and] printed at Wynkyn de Word’s press in 1495”.
The intention was to print the book in a style uniform with the Golden Legend of 1892 as soon as 150 subscribers were found. The project was abandoned in 1895 when it failed to gain enough subscribers.