Books

~Limited edition: no. 409 of 500 copies printed on handmade watermarked Riccardi Paper. Original undyed quarter linen, light blue cloth to boards. 4tos (20 x 27.1cm). Printed paper labels to front boards and spines. Mild browning to boards. Front board of vol. III slightly dented near base of spine. Tips of top corners of vols I & III, and bottom corners of vol. II, slightly pushed in. Top edges trimmed and gilt, other edges deckled. Hinges sound. With scarce original blue-grey dustwrappers and slipcases. Dustwrappers lettered in black to front, rear, and spine, with Riccardi Press emblem (elaborate interlace after Durer's 'second knot', itself after da Vinci) to front boards. Mild toning to dustwrappers and fading to dustwrapper spines. Minor edgewear to dustwrappers of vols II & III; moderate edgewear to top rear edge of vol. I dustwrapper only, with closed tear (4cm). Original Medici Society price stickers to front cover of all dustwrappers, sticker to vol. II slightly abraded. Small blank label (matching spine) to dustwrapper spine of vols I & III, handwritten number and small ink spot to dustwrapper spine of vol. II (generally Riccardi dustwrappers would have had the number of the limited edition copy written to the dustwrapper spine - in this case the no. visible to spine of vol. II is incorrect, so was presumably covered during production). Slipcases to vols II & III intact, with mild edgewear and marking, with band of fading (3cm wide) at fore-edge of vol. III slipcase. Vol. I slipcase splitting at top edges from front and rear and splitting starting at front bottom edge, but all present. Mild offset browning to endpapers. Title pages printed in blue & black, with vignette per vol. showing the characters whose tales are found within. With 36 colour plates with tissue guards, all guards captioned in red. Illustrations after watercolours by William Russell Flint (1880-1969), arguably the most acclaimed British watercolourist of his time, praised for his 'sensitivity of mood (.) vibrancy of colour and freedom of wash' (ODNB). One of the most impressive productions of the Riccardi Press, here with the rarely found original dustwrappers and slipcases. ~Robust packaging. All UK orders trackable, others on request. Size: x, 235 + x, 217 + x, 183pp.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400.