HAND AND SOUL by Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - November 1869

18 x 12cm [12mo], in original buff paper wraps w/printed title within a fine-ruled border to fr. cover, [1-3 (half-title; blank; title & text)] 4-22 (text, author's name & printer) [23-24 (blanks)] pp., all finely bound in burgundy straight-grain morocco w/decorative gilt dentelles, gilt title & 5 raised bands to spine, marbled ep.s, a.e.g., by Lucien Broca, London (stamped in French to verso of fr. ep.--David Brass states: "Master binder Lucien Broca was a Frenchman who came to London to work for Antoine Chatelin, and from 1876 to 1889 he was in partnership with Simon Kaufmann.  From 1890 he appears under his own name in Shaftesbury Avenue, and in 1901 he was at Percy Street, calling himself an 'Art Binder'.  He was recognized as a superb trade finisher, and Marianne Tidcombe has confirmed that he actually executed most of Sarah Prideaux's bindings from the mid-1890s").  With the decorative bookplate of Rosalind (designed by Charles William Sherborn & signed "CWS 1888"--of the bookplates designed by Sherborn, W.J. Hardy wrote in the Preface of his "Book-Plates" (1897): "Above all, the strikingly beautiful work of Mr. Sherborn, as seen in the book-plates of the Duke of Westminster, in that of Mr. William Robinson, and in many other fine examples, forms a refreshing oasis in the desert of wild eccentricity") to fr. pastedown; also w/the bookplate of Marie-Louise & Samuel Robert Rosenthal (designed by "V A") to fr. ep. On 8 Apr. 1880 Rossetti wrote to T.H. Hall Caine: "The time taken in composition [of 'Jenny'] reminds me of the fact (so long ago!) that I wrote the tale of 'Hand and Soul' (with the exception of an opening page or two) all in one night in December 1849, beginning I suppose about 2 a.m. and ending about 7.  In such a case a landscape and sky all unsurmised open gradually in the mind - a sort of spiritual 'Turner' among whose hills one ranges and in whose waters one strikes out at unknown liberty.  But I have found this only in nightlong work which I have seldom attempted, for it leaves one entirely broken, and this state was mine when I described the like of it at the close of the story.  Ah! once again, how long ago!" (MS: Manx Museum, IoM).  However, Rossetti mentions the work as early as 14 Sept. 1849 in a letter to his brother William: "I have done nothing to 'Hand & Soul'" (MS: Angeli Dennis Papers, UBC).  Also known as Proof State #10 of "Poems" (1870), this work was separately printed at Rossetti's request after he decided it did not fit w/the proposed poetry of his forthcoming 1870 publication.  On 30 Aug. 1869 he wrote to Jane Morris: "My reprint consists (to avoid raising undue expectation in so friendly a reader as Yourself) much of the following: .... Lastly, a prose piece called 'Hand and Soul', which is much more of the nature of a poem than anything else, and which I have thought well to include and revise, as I should not wish it to be lost" (MS: British Library).  Then on 3 Dec. he wrote to William Davies: "I send you with this a little tale written long ago.  I had included it among the poems I am printing, as it is really more a sort of poem than anything else; but coming to the conclusion after all that it looked awkward there I have had a few copies struck off to give away.  I send one for [James] Smetham too when you see him" (MS: Univ. of Leeds).  T.J. Wise claimed, without authority, that 100 copies were printed, a figure which disagrees with Rossetti's "a few copies" & Colbeck's "a small unspecified number."  Rossetti "caused various copies of Hand and Soul to be done up in a drab wrapper; and he gave some of them away, but never sold them.  These copies appear to be the same printing as in the Poems privately printed; but the pagination is altered, and runs from p. 1 to 22, and at the close is printed 'Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1850'.  From time to time copies ... in this form have turned up for sale, and have commanded high prices" (Rossetti 1905 p.17).  "Hand and Soul" was originally publ. in the 1st number of "The Germ," & after this 1869 printing it appeared in the "Fortnightly Review" (Dec. 1870, pp.692-701). Binding Fine; contents Fine--a brilliant copy of a very scarce item.  Slater p.216, Ashley IV 122, Fredeman 23.6 (see also 28.2, 28.22, & 30.12), Fennell pp.138-40, Colbeck 8.