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Details
GOWER, John (ca 1325-1408). De Confessione Amantis. Edited by Thomas Berthelet. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1554.
2o in sixes (267 x 188 mm). Gothic type. Title within woodcut border (McKerrow & Ferguson 26), several woodcut initials. (Final blank removed, title with lower inner margin repaired, a few wormholes occasionally touching letters, N3 shaved close at head, small rust-hole on Z6 catching a few letters.) 19th-century English morocco gilt, gilt-panelled in Restoration style, gilt and gauffered edges (head of spine lightly rubbed). Provenance: a few annotations in several early hands -- later pencilled marginalia -- Iltyd Nicholl (stamp on flyleaf and bookplate) -- Digby Nicholl (stamp on flyleaf) -- William Marchbank (armorial bookplate) -- E.M. Cox (bookplate and initials pencilled on rear flyleaf, 1904) -- purchased from Maggs Bros., London, 17 August 1973.
Third edition, after Caxton's first of 1483 and Berthelet's second of 1532 (lot 53). This is a paginary reprint of the second edition, with some corrections, except for the compression of the preliminary leaves which occupy two leaves fewer. Johnson wrote in his Dictionary: "He that reads the works of Gower will find smooth numbers and easy rhymes, of which Chaucer is supposed to have been the inventor, and the French words, whether good or bad, of which Chaucer is charged as the inventor." Pforzheimer 422; STC 12144.
2o in sixes (267 x 188 mm). Gothic type. Title within woodcut border (McKerrow & Ferguson 26), several woodcut initials. (Final blank removed, title with lower inner margin repaired, a few wormholes occasionally touching letters, N3 shaved close at head, small rust-hole on Z6 catching a few letters.) 19th-century English morocco gilt, gilt-panelled in Restoration style, gilt and gauffered edges (head of spine lightly rubbed). Provenance: a few annotations in several early hands -- later pencilled marginalia -- Iltyd Nicholl (stamp on flyleaf and bookplate) -- Digby Nicholl (stamp on flyleaf) -- William Marchbank (armorial bookplate) -- E.M. Cox (bookplate and initials pencilled on rear flyleaf, 1904) -- purchased from Maggs Bros., London, 17 August 1973.
Third edition, after Caxton's first of 1483 and Berthelet's second of 1532 (lot 53). This is a paginary reprint of the second edition, with some corrections, except for the compression of the preliminary leaves which occupy two leaves fewer. Johnson wrote in his Dictionary: "He that reads the works of Gower will find smooth numbers and easy rhymes, of which Chaucer is supposed to have been the inventor, and the French words, whether good or bad, of which Chaucer is charged as the inventor." Pforzheimer 422; STC 12144.