STEPHANIA: A TRIALOGUE by (BINDINGS - GUILD OF WOMEN BINDERS). FIELD, MICHAEL, (Pseudonym). [BRADLEY, KATHARINE HARRIS and EDITH EMMA COOPER.] - 1892

London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane, 1892. ONE OF 250 COPIES. Hardcover. A Prominently Signed Binding by Annie MacDonald,With Impressively Modelled Detail in Cover Scenes. 197 x 146 mm (7 3/4 x 5 3/4"). 6 p. l., 100 pp., 4 leaves (colophon and ads). ONE OF 250 COPIES. EXCEPTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE MODELLED GOATSKIN BY MRS. ANNIE MACDONALD OF THE GUILD OF WOMEN BINDERS, front cover with large lobed frame, its upper corners enclosing the binder's initial and the date (1897), the lower corners with daffodil blooms, the large central panel showing an elaborately detailed scene featuring a woman with long, flowing hair entreating the god Mercury in his signature winged hat and sandals, the two figures surmounted by an imperial crown through which twines a sprig of mistletoe (a design that appears in the woodcut frame on the title page), lower cover showing the woman kneeling by a man reclining on a couch, this scene enclosed in an oval beaded frame; flat spine with modelled title flanked by pine cone device at head and tail, green watered silk pastedowns framed by unusual turn-ins decorated with gilt vines and calf circles painted green and blue, leather hinges, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. Title page with full woodcut border filled with intertwined pine branches and mistletoe, colophon with pine cone device. Verso of front flyleaf with engraved bookplate of Charles Williston McAlpin (see below); extra paper title labels tipped onto rear blank. Two tiny red (ink?) marks to upper cover, inevitable offsetting from turn-ins to endpapers, once-detached front flyleaf tipped onto front free endpaper, other trivial defects, but still A VERY ATTRACTIVE COPY, the binding lustrous and scarcely worn, and the leaves fresh and clean. This book is a wonderful example of both the writing and binding skills of women in the Arts and Crafts movement. According to DNB, "Michael Field" was the pseudonym adopted by poet Katharine Harris Bradley (1846-1914) and her niece Edith Emma Cooper (1862-1913), who together aspired "to write great verse tragedies based on historical subjects, calling up the male Elizabethan tradition and eschewing modern realism." This work is a dramatic retelling of a popular Medieval tale: the poisoning of the Holy Roman Emperor Otho III by his concubine Stephania, in revenge for the murder of her husband, Otho's political opponent Crescentius. DNB tells us our poets "issued much of their work through private presses in small, beautifully decorated editions," many of them designed by their friend, the artist Charles Ricketts. The future founder of the Vale Press designed and illustrated several books for our publishers Mathews and Lane around the time this work was issued, so it is conceivable that he is responsible for the attractive woodcut decoration here. The style of modelled leather that we see on our covers originated in Edinburgh with Mrs. Annie MacDonald (d. 1924), whose own work and that of her pupils played an important role in the history of British bookbinding, especially among women. Inspired by Medieval books, she began teaching herself and others in the early 1890s (in a group that became known as the Edinburgh Arts and Crafts Club) the special technique of modelling seen on our binding. MacDonald used undressed goatskin, which mellows with age from white to a rich amber color, and worked it with one small tool, without cutting, raising, or padding the leather. Tidcombe gives MacDonald the credit for inspiring the bookseller Frank Karslake in 1898 to establish the Guild of Women Binders (see following two items) and says that "MacDonald was the prime mover in this, as she was eager to have a London outlet for bindings produced by her group. . . . Their modelled goatskin bindings comprised 40 of the 114 bindings shown in the first Guild exhibition." The design of our binding is impressive in the precision and extent of detail seen in the modelling, and it is, as a whole, a fine, flamboyant, and prominently signed exemplar of MacDonald's work. Former owner Charles Williston McAlpin, son of tobacco magnate David McAlpin, served as Secretary of Princeton University (his alma mater) from 1901 to 1914.