Carmina Alcaica.

8vo.

Bound by W.H. Smith: black morocco, gilt title on front cover, gilt titled spine with raised bands, gilt fillet on edges, vellum on pastedowns framed with a double fillet (spine and joints sl. rubbed). In a box of black morocco framed with gilt fillets and with sm. round ornaments to some angles, and titled on the spine.

Exquisite copy printed on vellum. Edition limited to [175 unnumbered copies incl. 25 vellum]. Text printed in Subiaco type, in black except for the title, the colophon and the register which are printed in red, nicely arranged and decorated by hand with initials, the first in gold and the others alternating in red and blue, by Graily Hew. Printer's mark at colophon.
Charles H. St John Horny created the Ashendene Press in 1894 (being named after his own home in Hertfordshire). It was already his ambition as a young boy to print fine books and this ambition increased further after his visit to William Morris at the Kelmscott Press in 1893. The first 11 books of Hornby's hand-press were printed in Hertfordshire; he then moved to Chelsea in 1899. It operated there until 1915. It had a revival in 1920 but the press closed in 1935.
Ref. Ransom, Ashendene Press, 16. - Tomkinson, Ashendene Press, 16. - Printing and the Mind Man [Exhibition cat.], 165.
Prov. Estelle Doheny (1875-1958), American book collecter and philanthropist. She started her collection in the early 1930s buying many types of books, including incunabula. She was married to the oilman Edward Laurence Doheny (bookpl. on leather).