Two Worlds and Other Poems

Decorative Bindings, Womens Studies and Women Authors, Most Recent Listing; Publisher's decorative cloth binding: ivory smooth cloth, stamped in gilt: front cover with central rectangular device framed in gilt incorporating the title over a central Templar-cross device which is set within a field of simplified crosses and globes. The rear cover has a floral design in gilt with the legend "ROSA MVNDI" (a reference to the final poem: "After Song / To Rosamond" -- a love poem to the author's wife) . The binding is clean and unsoiled, but is a bit toned, as is almost inevitable in this pale ivory shade. The spine still clearly shows the unusual elongated cross which connects the Century Company's wreath device at the foot with the tiny letters of the title at top. There is a touch of wear only at the top of the spine. This vivid binding is a spendid example of the work of Sarah de St. Prix Wyman Whitman (1842-1904) -- one of the most noted American designers, a leader among a small group whose work ensures that we see the last couple decades of the nineteenth century as the most important era of the decorative cloth book binding Much as Mr. And Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder maintained a salon in Manhattan for their fellow admirers of literature and the book arts, Sarah Whitman's Beacon Hill home on Vernon Street in Boston became a focal point for artists and writers -- since 1936 her house has been the headquarters of the noted bibliophile society "Club of Odd Volumes . " She was also a painter (fine examples of her work are in the Boston Public Library) , and she also became a noted artist in stained-glass. Examples of her glass works can be found in Churchs all over the east coast, including Trinity Church in Boston. Of her standing in artistic and social circles, George Santayana described Sarah Whitman as one of Boston's two "leading ladies" in the early 20th century -- the other being Isabella Stewart Gardner, (for whom Whitman designed the carved sign over the entrance to Garner's home, which is now a well-known museum) . Much of her work in book design was done for the Boston firm Houghton, Mifflin. It is no surprise that Richard Watson Gilder reached out to her for this most personal of his books -- a collaboration with his wife Helena de Kay (1846-1916) , who was a talented painter and a founder of the Art Students League and the Society of American Artists. Gilder makes only the following note in the volume to attribute all the charming decorative work in delicate line to his wife: "Decorations by H. De K. " Sarah Whitman's binding is not signed, but this title is well documented in the collections of her work at the Boston Public Library, Bowdoin College and University of Rochester. The lettering is also a very clear example of Sarah Whitman's distinct design work. She also designed Richard Watson Gilder's 1893 volume of poems, 'The Great Remembrance. ' As just one example of the circles of American artists in which both Gilders and Sarah Whitman played such central roles -- the Metropolitan Museum has on permanent display [Gallery 773] a gilt casting of the first of Augustus Saint Gaudens' innovative group portraits in relief panels. The Gilders, while in Paris in 1879 posed with their then-two-year-old son Roman on a visit to the studio of their great friend, the sculptor. This copy has the neat signature in ink of "Helen Russel Stahr / Jan. 30 1896 / M. M. M. " on the front free endpaper. Helen Stahr was one of two managing editors of the Wellesley Magazine in 1894, her senior year in the College. She became the proprietor of "Miss Stahr's School" in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. No other marks of any sort.…