Songs to Our Lady of Silence
Ditchling, Sussex: S. Dominic's Press, 1921. Chute, Desmond. Hardcover. Reprint of the 1920 edition, octavo size, 62 pp. Very good +. Item #22062630
The Saint Dominic's Press, founded by Harry (Hilary) Douglas Clarke Pepler, flourished at Ditchling, Sussex, from 1916 to 1936. The first home of the Press was "a disused stable", with a hundred-year-old Stanhope hand-press which supposedly had belonged to William Morris. Pepler endeavored to do everything possible by hand, believing that such would both produce the best results and also be a "more individual or 'humane'...product". He therefore "preferred the handpress to the machine, handmade to machine-made paper, and handset founder's type to the products of typesetting machines."
Pepler met Edward Johnston and Eric Gill while living in Hammersmith; Pepler and his family would eventually move to Ditchling to join Gill, who was one of the most important artists to provide illustrations for the St. Dominic's Press. Other artists who provided illustrations included David Jones, Desmond Chute (whose style is very like Gill's), Philip Hagreen, and Mary Dudley Short, among others.
While the text was first published by the Saint Dominic's in 1920, this the first printing in this format, "with five wood-engravings by Desmond Chute and press device by Gill."
___DESCRIPTION: Bound in grey textured paper over boards with a linen shelfback, title page with the Eric Gill press device, the five wood-engravings by Desmond Chute throughout; printed on Kelmscott handmade paper, octavo size (8 5/8" x 6"), pagination: [i-iv] 1-55 [1, colophon].
___CONDITION: Better than very good, with clean boards, slightly bumped corners without rubbing, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, the interior is clean and bright, and entirely free of prior owner markings; the linen shelfback with some sunning (or perhaps offsetting from the glue) and the rear free endpaper has small hole (1/2" by 1/8") an inch from the fore-edge .
___CITATION: Taylor & Sewell no. A73a; Ransom, p. 50 (no. 33); note that the quotes and much of the introductory information from "Three Private Presses" by Brocard Sewell.
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Price: $175.00