Title: The Child's Church Service.
Publisher: B.M. Pickering
Publication Date: 1874
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 3rd Edition
3rd Edition. 111 printed pages, plus 5 pages of publisher's adverts at the back. frontispiece, 11 black & white woodcut illustrations, one full-page. All edges red. Endpapers slightly browned. 9.5 x 15 cm. Original yellow cloth, covers embossed with extensive, pictorial, black, embossed decoration (slightly age-toned & corners verly slightly worn). This children's Church of England liturgy was printed by the Chiswick Press (who printed early work by William Morris and was a prototypical fine private press) with large void spaces, in various fonts, various sizes of the point and three pages printed vertically. The woodcuts have alpha and omega letters attached. Although the artist remains unknown, the style is proto-Arts and Crafts, leading via William Morris and later Vincent McNabb to the founding of St. Dominic's press by Hilary Pepler and Eric Gill. Although this copy is one of the fifth thousand supposedly printed, WorldCat only locates four copies. Presumably many copies, having been freely distributed to children nearly 150 years ago, were subsequently discarded and lost. Bookseller Inventory # 5047