Details
KATE GREENAWAY (1846-1901)
Kate Greenaway's Birthday Book for Children, London: George Routledge and Sons, [1880], 16°, PRESENTATION COPY, the printed presentation page inscribed to: "Lady Dorothy Nevill by Kate Greenaway. 10 Feb. 1881," with an original calligraphic dedication reading: "To the shades of Great Spirits This book is dedicated 1884" (both these pages detached), coloured plates and illustrations after Greenaway, the verso of frontispiece with the clipped signature of Samuel Clemens (as Mark Twain), SIGNED AT THE APPROPRIATE BIRTH DATES BY APPROXIMATELY 150 FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES OF LADY DOROTHY, contemporary green morocco with floral white metal clasp incorporating Lady Dorothy's initials, gilt and gauffered edges (some soiling, lightly rubbed).
Among the "Great Spirits" to have signed the birthday book are Oscar Wilde, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens (clipped), George Bernard Shaw, John Ruskin, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Algernon Swinburne, Robert Browning, Queen Victoria, Charles S. Parnell, Edward Duke of Clarence, Lord Salisbury, Henry Irving, Sarah Bernhardt, Randolph S. Churchill, Ellen Terry, Giuseppe Marconi, Arthur Sullivan, John Everett Millais, H. Rider Haggard, Joseph Chamberlain, Edward VII, Alexander Dumas, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry James, Matthew Arnold, William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli as Lord Beaconsfield (clipped), and Cardinal Newman.
Kate Greenaway's Birthday Book for Children, London: George Routledge and Sons, [1880], 16°, PRESENTATION COPY, the printed presentation page inscribed to: "Lady Dorothy Nevill by Kate Greenaway. 10 Feb. 1881," with an original calligraphic dedication reading: "To the shades of Great Spirits This book is dedicated 1884" (both these pages detached), coloured plates and illustrations after Greenaway, the verso of frontispiece with the clipped signature of Samuel Clemens (as Mark Twain), SIGNED AT THE APPROPRIATE BIRTH DATES BY APPROXIMATELY 150 FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES OF LADY DOROTHY, contemporary green morocco with floral white metal clasp incorporating Lady Dorothy's initials, gilt and gauffered edges (some soiling, lightly rubbed).
Among the "Great Spirits" to have signed the birthday book are Oscar Wilde, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens (clipped), George Bernard Shaw, John Ruskin, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Algernon Swinburne, Robert Browning, Queen Victoria, Charles S. Parnell, Edward Duke of Clarence, Lord Salisbury, Henry Irving, Sarah Bernhardt, Randolph S. Churchill, Ellen Terry, Giuseppe Marconi, Arthur Sullivan, John Everett Millais, H. Rider Haggard, Joseph Chamberlain, Edward VII, Alexander Dumas, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry James, Matthew Arnold, William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli as Lord Beaconsfield (clipped), and Cardinal Newman.
Literature
Guy Nevill appeard to attribute the calligraphic dedication to Kate Greenaway when he writes of Lady Dorothy: "She collected signatures ... in a book decorated for her by Kate Greenaway. She once sent it to Cardinal Newman asking for his autograph. Instead of writing in it he put it away in a drawer, forgetting to send it back ... The sequel was that the poor Cardinal was probed by the police, who suspected him of theft. He hastily signed it and sent it back" (Guy Nevill, Exotic Groves. A Portrait of Lady Dorothy Nevill, Michael Russell, 1984, pp. 82-83). However, there seems a greater likelihood that the dedication was the work of Lady Dorothy who was herself a skilled calligrapher and illuminator.