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DALZIELS' BIBLE GALLERY: ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGSby Brown, Ford Madox, Edward Burne-Jones, Arthur Boyd Houghton, William Holman Hunt, Frederick Leighton, Edward John Poynter, Frederick Sandys, Simeon Solomon, George Frederick Watts, et. al. (illus.)
London: George Routledge & Sons, 1881. First edition, 57 x 40.5cm [elephant folio], in publisher's portfolio (vellum-backed paper covered boards & flaps w/grey-patterned pastedowns, & vellum fore-edge flap) w/gilt & red title to fr. cover, [i-viii], [1-124], [1-2] (half-title, titlepage, Dalziels' statement leaf dated Oct. 1880, Contents leaf w/list of engravings & artists, 62 sheets of engravings, & Camden Press colophon leaf), w/72 proof wood engravings by the Dalziels printed on tinted India paper laid on rectos of watermarked "J. Whatman 1880" handmade paper. Stated Limited Edition (12/100) printed at the Camden Press, London. By 1862 the Dalziel Brothers were making preparations for an illustrated edition of the "Bible," & over several years commissioned drawings from many of the finest illustrators of the period. However, for various reasons the project never reached fruition, & 72 of the 90 accumulated engravings were finally publ. w/o biblical text, in 2 sizes: a bound regular edition of 1,000 numbered copies measuring 44 x 35cm; & this massive De Luxe issue of 100 vellum-backed portfolios w/the loose-leaf sheets laid in. Because the regular issue was priced at 5 guineas, "our 'Bible' commercially speaking, was a dead failure, some 200 copies being all that were sold. The balance of the number printed were disposed of at prices which we will not here record" ("Brothers Dalziel" 1901, p.256). In any case, all evidence points to 3 separate issues: a pre-publication issue w/the Dalziels's undated Camden Press imprint (examples are in the British Library, Nat'l Library of Scotland, Univ. of Cambridge, Barber Institute, & Univ. of Chicago, all being the regular format); the 1st trade issue w/Routledge's 1881 imprint (20 are known, incl. 4 portfolios [see below]); &, the American issue w/the 1881 imprint of Scribner & Welford, New York, who sold them in "[port]folio, vellum, & calf" for US$35.00 each (16 have been traced, incl. 1 portfolio). Copies of this De Luxe format rarely appear on the market; the most recent (nr. 22/100) was in the Dec. 2002 Estill sale at Bloomsbury Book Auctions, where it sold for �2,200 + commission. In fact, ours, the Estill copy, & only 3 others are traceable: the Univ. of Manitoba's is nr. 13/100; Gordon Ray's was inscr. by the Dalziels to E.J. Poynter; & Lawrence Univ. (Wisconsin) has the only known example of the American De Luxe issue. While Ray suggests (p.96) that the portfolios were for presentation only, at least 3 copies of the regular issue were also presented; for example, Harvard's is a "Press Copy" inscr. by the Dalziels to R.H. Hutton, Editor of the "Spectator." And while some copies of the regular issue have only 60 leaves of plates, all known portfolios have the full 62. Portfolio Good (upper corners worn, boards moderately soiled, vellum hinges sl. weak, & fore-edge flap a bit thumbed & spotted); contents Near-Fine (extremities of a few sheets sl. curled & soiled)--a very nice unsophisticated & unfoxed copy of a highly desirable item. White 146 ("the praise lavished on these designs is amply justified; the book is monumental") & passim, Reid 49 ("the most sumptuous of all our books") & passim, Fredeman 90.12, Ray 158 ("the artistic level is surely higher than that in any other of the Dalziels' collaborative volumes"), de Beaumont 21, Goldman 50 & passim.
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