ASTROPHEL & STELLA by (NONESUCH PRESS). SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP - 1931

London: Nonesuch Press, 1931. No. 1,144 of 1,210 copies. 230 x 145 mm. (9 x 5 3/4"). xxxviii, [ii], 193, [1] pp.
Original publisher's patterned paper folded over boards, green paper label on front cover, untrimmed edges. With green chemise, housed in matching (slightly toned) patterned floral slipcase. Dreyfus 73. A little offsetting from patterned paper turn-ins onto free endpapers, spine just slightly sunned, otherwise pristine inside and out.

This is an appealing private press edition of the first sonnet sequence written in English. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86) was a poet, traveller, courtier, adventurer, and more in his very short life, which ended when he was fatally wounded in a conflict with the Spanish at Zutphen. Just as Petrarch had composed a series of ardent sonnets dedicated to the elusive Laura, Sidney penned 108 sonnets, in which the poet Astrophel celebrates, woos, hopes for, and despairs of, the love of Stella. The work influenced both Spenser and Shakespeare deeply. The patterned paper used here in the binding was designed by Albert Rutherston and produced at the Curwen Press..