Scarce, attractive and unusual item. I was not able to find anything quite comparable having sold at auctions or anywhere else.

44 love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 Sonnets from the Portuguese is a collection of 44 love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The collection was acclaimed and popular during the poet's lifetime and it remains so.  The most famous poems from this collection are numbers 33 and 43.

The 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' manuscript was made for Phoebe Anna Traquair's brother, William Richardson Moss (1845-1915). Moss was a Lancashire cotton manufacturer who commissioned a number of other significant art works from her, including an illuminated copy (1898-1902) of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 'The House of Life', a painted ceiling decoration (1893-1894) for his house, Burnthwaite, near Bolton, and two fine enamelled caskets (1906-1907).

Description

Scarce and an attractive copy of ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Traquair has illustrated and decorated each sonnets with artwork calligraphy on fine thick paper. This copy is printed facsimile of illuminated manuscript original (which is held in the National Library of Scotland) – as far as I know there were 50-75 copies done, and most of them were issued in paper wrappers. This one is specially bound copy, and could be one of the copies bound by Traquair herself!!!?.. The last written page within the book is clearly showing the following text; 'This book has been printed and illuminated by me, and finished in January 1897. Phoebe Anna Traquair (born Moss)'.  (No publisher name is given; possibly by William Hay of Edinburgh). Very Good Condition. Hardcover Edition. Attractive modelled goatskin binding with detailed artworks scene featuring floral decorations on front board. Decorative lettering on spine. Light blue endpapers. Top edges gilt. (Handsome & Lovely Copy).

Book Dimensions: 23.5 x 17.3 x 1.8cm

Condition

Light wear to spine and boards’ corners. No writing, inscriptions or turned down corners. Solid binding, tight and square. Clean and bright text (Lovely Copy) (Please see pictures).

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a prolific writer and reviewer in the Victorian period, and in her lifetime, her reputation as a poet was at least as great as that of her husband, poet Robert Browning. Some of her poetry has been noted in recent years for strong feminist themes, but the poems for which Elizabeth Barrett Browning is undoubtedly best know are Sonnets from the Portuguese.

Phoebe Anna Traquair

Traquair was an outstanding Arts & Crafts artist in late nineteenth-century Scotland, working across a range of studio crafts and public art. She is perhaps best known today for her mural decoration of the Mansfield Traquair Centre and her equally extraordinary suite of four silk embroideries The Progress of a Soul in the Scottish National Gallery.

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