DOVES PRESS: BIBLE; English; Authorized.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The English Bible containing the Old Testament & the New. The Doves Bible, the finest output of the press and among the finest achievements of typography, one of 500 sets on handmade paper. This is the Hearst Castle copy, the residence satirized as Xanadu in Citizen Kane (1941). Its owner, the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, provided Orson Welles with the model for Charles Foster Kane.Situated in San Simeon, California, the castle was constructed from 1919 to 1947 in collaboration between Hearst (1863-1951) and the architect Julia Morgan. Welles's unflattering portrayal of Hearst provoked attempts to sabotage the film, explored in the documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996). This set appeared in the sale of Hearst's library through Parke Benet in 1938. The shelf labels of Hearst Castle appear on the rear free endpapers recto.In contrast to Hearst's opulence, this binding presents a restrained aesthetic entirely appropriate for the Doves Bible, reserving more ornate decoration for the doublures. The binder, Henry Stikeman, trained under the renowned American bookbinder William Matthews and soon himself rose to pre-eminence in the last decades of the 19th century. Much of the Stikeman bindery's production was for high-end publisher's sets and in later years he established his trade bindery in New York."The Doves Bible and the Kelmscott Chaucer stand side by side upon the highest peak of typographical accomplishment, utterly dissimilar yet with the same elemen

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