CHIVERS BINDING.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám A resplendent example of the Chivers bindery's celebrated "vellucent" style, to a very apposite design by the illustrator Herbert Granville Fell (1872-1951). Fell was chief designer and art advisor for the bindery for some twenty years.Although he was a popular art journalist in his day, Fell's "name as an artist deserves more recognition" (Houfe). He drew on a complex fusion of styles, mediating between the tropes of art nouveau and pre-Raphaelitism, as exemplified beautifully by this volume. The translation is that of Edward FitzGerald's celebrated Victorian rendering of the poem. The binding's design draws upon the text's characteristic imagery of wine, poetry, song, and a garden setting.Cedric Chivers (1853-1929), one of the most successful bookbinders of his time, developed a new technique for binding books in the 1890s. His elaborate cover designs were painted on paper and then covered by vellum, which had been treated to become translucent.

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