Poems, By the Late William Cowper, Esq. of The Inner-Temple. [Fore-edge Painting].

COWPER, William.

Item Number: 138608

London: Published by W.H. Reid, 1820.

First edition of the collected poems of William Cowper. Octavo, two volumes bound in full contemporary straight-grain morocco with gilt titles and elaborate gilt tooling to the spine, gilt scroll borders to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, all edges gilt, each volume decorated with a superb concealed fore-edge painting of an animated hunting scene. Both paintings depict a sparsely wooded autumnal landscape, the one on Vol. I showing two hunters in red coats riding at full gallop, one on a bay and the other on a white horse, with the hounds in full cry, while a third hunter follows in the distance. Vol. II shows the two hunters walking their horses back and forth around the hounds who are excitedly trying to pick up a lost scent at the foot of two massive pollard oaks. From the library of Joan Ann Day, with her signature dated 1827 on the end-leaves, and with her small bookplate bearing her name in engraved gothic script in each volume. In good condition with the fore-edge paintings exceptionally bright and well-executed.

The term 'fore-edge painting' can refer to any painted decoration on the fore-edges of the leaves of a book, such as was not uncommon in the 15th and early 16th centuries, particularly in Italy. The term is most commonly used, however, for an English technique quite widely practiced in the second half of the 17th century in London and Edinburgh, and popularized in the 18th century by John Brindley and, in particular, Edwards of Halifax, whereby the fore-edge of the book, very slightly fanned out and then held fast, is decorated with painted views, or conversation pieces. The edges are then squared up and gilded in the ordinary way, so that the painting remains concealed while the book is closed: fan out the edges and it reappears. The technique was practiced by a few other English binders in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and a certain number of undoubted examples survive. The majority of extant examples of fore-edge paintings date to the late 19th and early 20th century on reproductions of books originally published in the early 19th century, including the present volume.