Illustrated Books

Selected, arranged & illustrated by Sir William Russell Flint London: The Golden Cockerel Press, 1955. One of the 445 copies bound in quarter cream parchment with blue cloth boards. Title and device in gold on the spine. Illustrated with two watercolour paintings and 40 crayon drawings. Though not called for, this copy has been signed by Flint on the colophon.  Additionally, Sir William has inscribed the copy for his sister Charlotte: “My dearest Lottie’s copy of my Herrick, from Willie, April 1955”. Flint’s reference to “my” Herrick indicates how personal a venture this book was for him.  As press proprietor Christopher Sanford explains in Cock-a-Hoop: “This was a book that I printed for the artist at his request and expense. Indeed the type was already set when he asked me to make it a Cockerel, and all the subsequent details of its production were exactly to his specifications. The illustrations were no commission for Sir William but as he maintained a long-sustained labour of love, a painter’s tribute to a great poet.”  Spine a little discolored, boards lightly spotted, very slight bowing and some foxing to the page edges, still very good or better in a similar slip case, a couple of small snags, some rubbing and browning. A nice Association copy. less