Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography. [Fore-edge Painting].

IRVING, Washington.

$975.00

Item Number: 138922

London: Henry G. Bohn, 1861.

Finely bound example of Goldsmith’s biography of the famed novelist. 16 mo, bound in full polished calf with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, double gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled, decorated with a double fore-edge painting revealing two cityscapes. In very good condition.

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.