GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS: CHAUCER, Geoffrey; GILL, Eric (illus.).

£15,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Troilus and Criseyde. First Golden Cockerel Press edition, number 129 of 219 copies printed on Kelmscott handmade paper, retaining the seldom-seen original slipcase. Loosely inserted is the equally elusive publisher's prospectus for autumn 1926, describing this edition as "a larger and more elaborate volume than has hitherto been attempted."Troilus and Criseyde was one of the first books that Eric Gill illustrated for the Golden Cockerel Press, having joined as chief engraver in 1924. Together with The Song of Songs (1925), Canterbury Tales (1925), and The Four Gospels (1931), it is one of "the classic examples of specialist book production of that period... For a while the Golden Cockerel was Eric Gill" (MacCarthy, p. 187).Gill's artworks "captured the whimsical interplay between words and images displayed in medieval illuminated manuscripts... In Troilus and Cryseide, Gill mixed full page illustrations with a combination of black and white lines and a rich assortment of shapes that presented a sense of motion. He created serpentine flora with simple figures to cushion the distinctive text. These border decorations reflect the narrative stanzas in an unassuming manner" (Berona, p. v).There were also six copies on vellum.

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