SPENSER, Edmund; FAIRFAX-MUCKLEY, Louis illus. The Faerie Queene, Pictured and Decorated by Louis Fairfax-Muckley, with an Introduction by John W. Professor of English Literature at King’s College, London. Printed at London: J. First Fairfax-Muckley edition, one of 1,250 copies printed on ordinary paper, in addition to 100 on handmade paper. Leather-bound, in two volumes, hardcover, quarto (24.5cm x 19cm), pp. English text, with an introduction by John W. Handsomely rebound in half leather, blue cloth sides, top edges gilt. Woodcut frontispiece and title-page, 25 woodcut illustrations, 11 bifolia, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, ornaments, and borders throughout. Condition: GOOD to VERY GOOD. Bindings square and firm, trivial marks to covers, spines lightly sunned, contents very well-preserved and without previous ownership markings. Notes: The edition was intended as a stylistic companion to Dent’s edition of Le Morte d’Arthur (1894-95), illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, and as a competitor to the George Allen edition of The Faerie Queene, illustrated by Walter Crane and published the same year. A 1901 profile by the Society of Designers declares that he has always had a strong bent towards the straightforward methods of the early painters. As witness the beautiful designs for his well-known edition of the’Faerie Queene,’ which fully express his natural admiration of the early Italian work p. Dent commissioned Beardsley and Fairfax-Muckley to illustrate his deluxe arts and crafts publications in an effort to emulate the success of the Kelmscott Press. Society of Designers,’A Designer of the Birmingham School’, The Artist: An Illustrated Monthly Record of Arts, Crafts and Industries, 1901. Please view my other rare books.
