The First Violin
New York: Brentano’s, (1896). Two volumes, measuring 8 x 5.25 inches: [6], 292; [4], 275, [1]. Original tan cloth elaborately stamped with two-toned gilt vines across boards and spines, top edges gilt, publisher’s tan cloth dust jackets lettered in gilt. Title pages printed in red and black; frontispieces, illustrations, and engraved plates throughout text. Lightest foxing to plates.
Splendidly bound illustrated edition of Victorian novelist Jessie Fothergill’s most popular title, the story of May Wedderburn, a young English musician whose studies in Germany are complicated by her attraction to a mysterious violinist: “Surely a well-regulated mind would have turned away from him – uninfluenced. If so, then mine was an unregulated mind.” Fothergill depicts, without condemnation, the extramarital affair between May’s married sister and her voice teacher, a potentially scandalous theme that delayed the novel’s initial publication. The First Violin finally appeared in 1877, published anonymously to protect Fothergill’s family, and became an international bestseller. This deluxe Brentano’s edition has long been collected for its intricate bright and matte gold stamping, which creates a dramatic sense of movement as light shifts over the boards. See Richard Minsky, The Art of American Book Covers 45. In a 2010 blog post, Minsky joins binding collector John Lehner in attributing this unsigned binding to Lee Thayer, co-founder of The Decorative Designers, the firm responsible for many of the most iconic American trade bindings. Provenance: Morris-Levin Collection of Publishers’ Bookbindings. A fine example of a scarce edition.
Price: $500.00