ROSSETTI, William Michael (ed.).

£12,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Germ: First edition, bound from the original parts. On the occasion of a Millais exhibition in 1886 The Times noted "The golden book of the Brotherhood was the little magazine called The Germ, of which only four numbers were published, and which is now one of the most treasured of modern bibliographical curiosities". The present copy includes authorship attributions in pencil.At the beginning of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, The Germ was established as a magazine by the movement's founding members Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and William Michael Rossetti. The magazine's mission was "to obtain the thoughts of Artists, upon Nature as evolved in Art". Only four numbers were published (in January, February, March, and May, 1850) and the title changed from the third number. The publication was a financial failure but was, later, recognized as a significant influence and important publication in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Each issue included an engraving, poetry and historical or critical essays (on subjects, for example, such as early Italian artists, whom the group emulated).In 1864 C. L. Dodgson ("Lewis Carroll") tried to acquire a copy of the periodical. He wrote to Rossetti who replied stating that "I really have not the least idea where that precious publication would be obtained... An exhaustive inquiry among some of the trades... might I fancy have produced some results about the year 1850, but I fear in 1864 the golden opportunity

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