Title: Fables and other poems. >>MINIATURE CATHEDRAL BINDING<<
Publisher: Jones & Co.3 Acton Place, Kingsland Road [London].
Publication Date: 1824
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
xxi, 216 printed pages (very mild sporadic foxing). With a life of John Gay by Dr. Johnson at the beginning. Engraved additional title page and portrait frontispiece. Inner gilt dentelles. Original forest green endpapers. All edges gilt. 58 x 92mm. Contemporary maroon morocco cathedral binding (slightly rubbed along hinges and at the head of the spine). Title lettering in gilt on spine. One of the 39 titles in the Jones's Diamond Poets series. Gothic revival cathedral style of binding that is not so common in miniature books of the early nineteenth century, particularly in books the are not directly related to the Christian faith. Fable 10 is entitled The Elephant and the Bookseller: a wise elephant is browsing in a bookshop, taking books from the shelves to read them, from Greek literature to Natural History, but dismissing them as inaccurate; the elephant is overheard by the Bookseller, who with excitement bows to the elephant and begs him to take up his pen and share his wisdom; the elephant scornfully replies as he leaves the bookshop: "When wrinkling with a sneer his trunk, Friend, quoth the Elephant, you're drunk". A second edition by Jones was published 7 years after this. Bondy, 84-5. Spielmann, 243 (1831 edition). Welsh, 2952. WorldCat locates four copies of this earlier edition. Seller Inventory # 5324