An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln: Consisting of his Letters Speeches and Conversations.

STEPHENSON, Nathaniel Wright. [Abraham Lincoln].

$6,000.00

Item Number: 138601

London: Andrew Melrose, 1926.

First edition of Stephenson’s appreciation of the great American President. Octavo, bound in full crushed levant morocco in an elaborate Cosway-style binding with a hand painted miniature ivorene portrait of Lincoln under glass to the front panel within an elaborate gilt vignette, double gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt-ruled turn-ins and inner dentelles, all edges gilt, watered silk endleaves, illustrated, tissue-guarded engraved frontispiece. In fine condition. An exceptional presentation.

Cosway bindings (named for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were popularized, if not invented, in the early 1900s by the renowned London bookselling firm of Henry Sotheran. The earliest Cosway bindings were created by Miss C.B. Currie who faithfully imitated Cosway's detailed watercolor style of portraiture from designs by J.H. Stonehouse, Sotheran’s manager. These delicate miniature paintings, often on ivory, were set into the covers or doublures of richly-tooled bindings and protected by a thin pane of glass.