Horace; William Morris - The Odes of Horace Limited Edition - ( Item 138953 )
Published in London by Folio Society. 2014. First Thus. Fine Hardback. No inscriptions or bookplates. Fine solander box. Limited to 980 copies of which this is number 86. Facsimile volume. Printed on Tatami paper in coloured inks with gold and silver foil. Bound in Indian smooth-grain goatskin with 5 raised bands on the spine. Gold blocked on spine, edges and doublures. Shuffled pages. 192 pages. 6¾" x 5". Introduced by Clive Wilmer. Solander box. Bound in buckram with cloth-lined recess. Blocked in silver and gold foil on front and spine. 12½" x 9¾". This is the first facsimile of this exquisite manuscript and provides a fascinating record of William Morris’s creative method. Commentary volume: Set in Poliphilus. Bound in Freelife Merida Forest paper. Frontispiece portrait. 64 pages. 11" x 8¾". Solander box. Bound in buckram with cloth-lined recess. Blocked in silver and gold foil on front and spine. 12½" x 9¾". The printing of these delicate pages was entrusted to Castelli Bolis in Bergamo, Italy, who are specialists in gold-foil printing, and the binding to the craft bindery of Smith Settle in Yorkshire. Each detail – from the varied shades of gold in the decorations to the green-black tone of the goatskin binding – has been reproduced with meticulous care to match as closely as possible the original volume. The book is housed in a decorated solander box, alongside a handsome commentary volume. This essential companion contains a full-verse translation by William Gladstone and an absorbing essay on the genesis of the book and the unfolding of Morris’s passion for illumination. The vision behind William Morris’s entire creative output hinged upon a vehement aversion to what Walter Benjamin described as 'the age of mechanical reproduction'. His illuminated manuscripts typify this belief. Beautifully calligraphed and intricately ornamented, they stood in defiant opposition to what Morris perceived to be the drab and soulless fruits of modern labour. He believed in the assiduous creation of beauty, both for its own sake and as a path to wisdom; and the delicate art of illumination was, for him, a means of pursuing this ideal. Between 1869 and 1875, Morris produced 18 illuminated books, resurrecting a tradition that had faded with the invention of printing at the end of the 15th century. Among these were A Book of Verse and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and two of the greatest latin texts: The Aeneid and The Odes of Horace. Morris included all four books of The Odes, the last of which, in its unfinished form, provides a fascinating record of his creative method.
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