A masterpiece of English wood engraving between the Wars

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Rare Books, Autographs & Maps

By Doyle

Nov 25, 2025

Set Reminder 2025-11-25 10:00:00 2025-11-25 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Rare Books, Autographs & Maps https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/doyle/rare-books-autographs-maps-21321
Auction of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Tuesday, November 25, 2025 at 10am Consignments Are Currently Being Accepted for Future Auctions We Invite You to Contact Us for a Complimentary Auction Evaluation of Your Collection Doyle info@doyle.com

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• Lot Description
  GOSSE, IRENE and GERTRUDE HERMES, illustrator A Florilege. Chosen from the old Herbals. The Swan Press, Chelsea, 1931. One of 150 copies. Publisher's three-quarters white buckram spine and corners, green russia panels. 34 cm., white buckram spine and corners, green russia panels. 48 ff. on heavy hand-made paper with 20 full-page wood engravings by Gertrude Hermes. original laid-in tissues still largely present. Slight wear to the fragile and easily stained russia, and minor soiling to the buckram, but overall close to a fine copy of this extremely fragile book, which bears a presentation bookplate "In memory of Michael Heriot Huth Walters for his friend." Walters, who was educated as a mathematician and astronomer, was the typesetter (and, with his mother, the founder) of the Swan Press. He died in 1934 at an untimely 25 years of age. Gertrude Hermes (1901-1983) attended the Leon Underwood School of Painting and Drawing. She cut her first wood engraving when she was just 22 and still studying with Underwood. In 1926 she married the wood engraver Blair Hughes-Stanton. She prepared engravings for the aborted illustrated editions of White's Selborne and Davies's The Lovers' Song Book for the Gregynog Press while he was the Director of the Press. For reasons given in Harrop's book on the Gregynog (which in retrospect seem almost incomprehensible), the magnificent illustrations she produced for those two works remained unpublished until the editions issued some years ago by Gwas Gregynog. After this unfortunate beginning (which was followed shortly afterward by her divorce) she went on to a long and successful career as a sculptor. Alan Horne remarks that Hermes is regarded as one of the most versatile and accomplished of the twentieth-century wood engravers, remarks echoed in Joanna Selborne's monumental book on the field. This is her magnum opus, at least so far as her contemporaneously published work is concerned. The pressman was Gage-Cole, who also worked for the Ashendene Press. For reasons that we have been unable to ascertain, this book (despite the not insignificant edition size) is excessively scarce. Some mischance (perhaps explained by the bookplate in the present copy) must have attended the publication, though the fragile binding may also have been a factor in its fate. Ridler records it.

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