#Hacon & Ricketts

[thebeautifulbook]

DRAMATIC ROMANCES & LYRICS by Robert Browning. (London: Hacon & Ricketts/The Vale Press, 1899). Art binding by Sarah Prideaux (1900).

Dark green morocco binding with gilt tooling. Prideaux is considered one of the greatest woman bookbinders of the period.

[heaveninawildflower]

Decorative pages by Charles S. Ricketts.

1) ‘Dramatic Romances and Lyrics’ by Robert Browning. Published 1899.

2) ‘Fifty Songs’ by Thomas Campion. Published 1896 by Vale and Ballantine Press 

3) ‘A House of Pomegranates’ by Oscar Wilde. Published 1891 by J. R. Osgood, McIlvaine.

4)  Front  cover of ‘A House of Pomegranates’ by Oscar Wilde. Published 1891 by J. R. Osgood, McIlvaine.

5) & 6) ‘A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts.’ Published 1904 by Ballantyne Press under the supervision of C. Ricketts, who is the designer of the three founts and the decoration.

7) ‘Empedocles on Etna, A Dramatic Poem’ by Matthew Arnold. Published 1896 by The Ballantyne Press.

archive.org

[uwmspeccoll]

It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we present selected pages from Charles Ricketts’s Vale Press edition of Michael Drayton’s Nymphidia and Muses Elizium printed in London at the Ballantyne Press in 1896. Nymphidia was first published in 1627 and The Muses' Elizium, Drayton’s final publication, in 1630. These texts are edited here by Rickett’s friend and collaborator John Gray. The text was printed in Vale type, designed by Ricketts in 1895 using Nicolas Jenson types as his models, and cut by the punchcutter Edward Philip Prince, who had cut the Kelmscott typefaces. The paper was specially hand-made with the Vale Press watermark by English papermaker Joseph Arnold at his Eynsford Paper Mill in Dartford, Kent. Not having a press of his own, Ricketts contracted work with the London branch of the venerable Ballantyne Press, closely supervised by Ricketts himself, where Vale Press work was handprinted on an Albion iron hand press.

The border design used on the first page of text shown here originally appeared in another Vale Press publication earlier in the year, but the frontispiece depicting Oberon and Puck on a background of honeysuckle leaves and flowers was designed and cut by Ricketts to face it in this publication. Ricketts also designed and cut all the initial letters. Ricketts’s drawings for the initials were photographed onto a wood block, engraved by Ricketts, and then turned into electroplates. Ricketts also designed 12 patterned papers for use on bindings. The individual motifs for these papers were first engraved in wood, then printed in repeating patterns, which was then cast as electrotypes. The design for the paper used on this edition, printed in green ink, is called “nut and mouse.” The edition was sold by Hacon & Ricketts (William Llewellyn Hacon was Ricketts’s business partner).

View our other posts on the Vale Press.

View more Fine Press Friday posts.

[blprompt]

Image taken from page 85 of 'The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)'

Image taken from: Title: "The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)" Author: SUCKLING, John - Sir Contributor: GRAY, John - Canon Contributor: Ricketts, Charles S. Shelfmark: "British Library HMNTS 11603.h.49.", "British Library HMNTS C.99.f.25.", "British Library HMNTS Davis 279." Page: 85 Place of Publishing: London Date of Publishing: 1896 Publisher: Hacon & Ricketts Issuance: monographic Identifier: 003537490 Explore: Find this item in the British Library catalogue, 'Explore'. Download the PDF for this book (volume: 0) Image found on book scan 85 (NB not necessarily a page number) Download the OCR-derived text for this volume: (plain text) or (json) Click here to see all the illustrations in this book and click here to browse other illustrations published in books in the same year. Order a higher quality version from here. from BLPromptBot https://ift.tt/2Rrj3ET

[uwmspeccoll]

It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we present pages from Charles Ricketts’s 1901 Vale Press production of De Cupidinis et Psyches Amoribus Fabula Anilis, printed in London at the Ballantyne Press in an edition of 310 copies. This tall, thin book includes five original wood engravings and one wood-engraved border design by Charles Ricketts. The Latin text was carefully reviewed by Vale Press manager Charles John Holmes and printed in a Venetian-style type called Vale, designed by Ricketts and produced in 1895, on unbleached, handmade paper by Joseph Arnold bearing the Vale Press watermark.

In his diary Ricketts states that the illustrations were “all old designs save the last one,” and he worked on engraving them throughout February 1901. The printing of the book was completed in September of that year, and special collections librarian Maureen Watry claims in her 2004 book on the Vale Press that “Undoubtedly, one of Rickett’s motivations for printing a Latin text was the opportunity to display the Vale fount to its best advantage. . . . The presence of fewer tailed letters gives the printed page a greater evenness of effect, especially in the large format that Ricketts chose for this text.”

The edition was sold by Hacon & Ricketts (William Llewellyn Hacon was Ricketts’s business partner) and John Lane, The Bodley Head. Our copy, which was withdrawn from UC-Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, is another donation from our good friend Jerry Buff.

View our other posts on the Vale Press.

View more Fine Press Friday posts. 

[blprompt]

Image taken from page 123 of 'The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)'

Image taken from: Title: "The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)" Author: SUCKLING, John - Sir Contributor: GRAY, John - Canon Contributor: Ricketts, Charles S. Shelfmark: "British Library HMNTS 11603.h.49.", "British Library HMNTS C.99.f.25.", "British Library HMNTS Davis 279." Page: 123 Place of Publishing: London Date of Publishing: 1896 Publisher: Hacon & Ricketts Issuance: monographic Identifier: 003537490 Explore: Find this item in the British Library catalogue, 'Explore'. Download the PDF for this book (volume: 0) Image found on book scan 123 (NB not necessarily a page number) Download the OCR-derived text for this volume: (plain text) or (json) Click here to see all the illustrations in this book and click here to browse other illustrations published in books in the same year. Order a higher quality version from here. from BLPromptBot https://ift.tt/2pGuAoS

[blprompt]

Image taken from page 45 of 'The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)'

Image taken from: Title: "The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)" Author: SUCKLING, John - Sir Contributor: GRAY, John - Canon Contributor: Ricketts, Charles S. Shelfmark: "British Library HMNTS 11603.h.49.", "British Library HMNTS C.99.f.25.", "British Library HMNTS Davis 279." Page: 45 Place of Publishing: London Date of Publishing: 1896 Publisher: Hacon & Ricketts Issuance: monographic Identifier: 003537490 Explore: Find this item in the British Library catalogue, 'Explore'. Download the PDF for this book (volume: 0) Image found on book scan 45 (NB not necessarily a page number) Download the OCR-derived text for this volume: (plain text) or (json) Click here to see all the illustrations in this book and click here to browse other illustrations published in books in the same year. Order a higher quality version from here. from BLPromptBot https://ift.tt/2A9dSAz

[blprompt]

Image taken from page 40 of 'The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)'

Image taken from: Title: "The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)" Author: SUCKLING, John - Sir Contributor: GRAY, John - Canon Contributor: Ricketts, Charles S. Shelfmark: "British Library HMNTS 11603.h.49.", "British Library HMNTS C.99.f.25.", "British Library HMNTS Davis 279." Page: 40 Place of Publishing: London Date of Publishing: 1896 Publisher: Hacon & Ricketts Issuance: monographic Identifier: 003537490 Explore: Find this item in the British Library catalogue, 'Explore'. Download the PDF for this book (volume: 0) Image found on book scan 40 (NB not necessarily a page number) Download the OCR-derived text for this volume: (plain text) or (json) Click here to see all the illustrations in this book and click here to browse other illustrations published in books in the same year. Order a higher quality version from here. from BLPromptBot https://ift.tt/2JZoVUw

[mechanicalcurator]

Image from 'The Poems of Sir John Suckling. (Edited by John Gray and decorated by C. Ricketts.)', 003537490

Author: SUCKLING, John Sir

Page: 73

Year: 1896

Place: London

Publisher: Hacon & Ricketts

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