Live auction - Lot 163
[UK - Vale Press]
The rime of the ancient mariner.
(London, the Ballantyne Press, sold by Hacon & Ricketts, [March] 1899)
€ 120 / 150
Live bidding (Drouot*) Live bidding (Invaluable*)Bidding is closed
Lot description
8vo.
Publisher's binding: blue paper boards, lettered labels on front cover and flat spine (spine sl. soiled). Top edge trimmed.
Opening on a nice large laurel border and illustrated with large orn. initials and sm. ornaments in text. Illustrations by Ch. Ricketts. Printed in Vale type in red & black. Edition limited to 220 unnumbered copies (incl. 10 on vellum, not for sale), one of the 210 on Arnold's hand-made paper. This work of Coleridge was very successful and was out of print in the summer list. "Rather curiously, perhaps, the author's name does not appear on the binding or in the title of the book, only in the colophon" (Watry). "The rime of the ancient mariner" is Coleridge's (1772-1834) longest major poem. It was published in 1798 in the first edition of "Lyrical Ballads".
Ref. Watry B23. - Ransom, Vale Press, 23. - Tomkinson, Vale Press, 23. - A collection of books designed by Charles Ricketts. Zurich, L'Art ancien, bulletin 25, 1972, pp. 2-43, n. 43.