Dickens Charles Brock C E Illustrator (4 results)

Condition: Good. Good condition. No Dust Jacket No. 32 - Kings Treasuries of Literature series. Owner's name on endpage. (Ebenezer Scrooge).

[Literature] FIRST BROCK ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Octavo (19 x 12cm), pp.viii; 158; [2], publisher's advertisements. Publisher's vellum, gilt tooling to front board and spine. Top edge gilt, the rest untrimmed. Illustrated colour frontispiece and two-tone illustrated title page, eight colour plates, ten black and white in-text illustrations. Plate opposite pp.26 has come entirely loose, toning to textblock, some soiling to vellum, slight warping to boards. Very good. A beautiful binding of a beloved classic. This copy is the first edition of 'A Christmas Carol' with the charming C. E. Brock illustrations.

[Literature] FIRST BROCK ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Octavo (19 x 12cm), pp.[ii]; viii; 158; [2]. Contemporary quarter vellum with green cloth over boards, morocco gilt-lettered label to spine with further gilt tooling. Tissue-guarded halftone frontispiece and title-page vignette, 7 other coloured plates throughout, 10 in-text black and white illustrations. Marbled endpapers. Top edge gilt. Some toning to edges of textblock, bumping to corners, some wearing to spine. Very good indeed. This edition of a Christmas Carol is the first with the charming C. E. Brock illustrations. This copy has a contemporary binding by Bumpus, who had a reputation for handsome and classical styles.

First edition thus; 8vo (185 x 125 mm); 8 colour plates and illustrations by C.E. Brock,slight ag-toning to paper, otherwise near-fine; full vellum by Cedric Chivers of Bath (gilt stamped on lower dentelle), the upper cover with a hand-painted scene of Scrooge walking in a snowy street within a wide decorative panel with small mother-of-pearl circular inlay, gilt borders and dots, the spine decorated in similar style with small circular mother-of-pearl inlay, top edge gilt, slight shelf-lean and mild toning to vellum, otherwise near-fine Following a lecture by Cyril Davenport of the British Museum on the 18th century painted vellum bindings of Edwards of Halifax, Chivers created his own 'Vellucent' bindings using established artists such as Jessie M. King, Alice Shepherd, and H. Granville Fell. In its prime the company experimented and specialised in highly skilled and beautiful bindings; this example being one of them. Chivers was born in Bath to a bookbinding family. After working for his father and various other binders he opened his own business in 1878, in the premises formerly occupied by Robert Riviere in Union Street, Bath. He subsequently moved to a double fronted shop at 39 Gay Street and then, as the business expanded, to a large house at Portway in Combe Park where the company operated until 1990.