Irish Melodies
Thomas Moore. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1846.

Additional title and decorative borders throughout by Daniel Maclise. Apart from letterpress title, preface leaf, and end matter, entirely engraved throughout. 4to, original bevelled cream boards printed in green and gold with shamrock border enclosing center roundel showing woman playing harp (front cover) and publisher’s monogram (rear cover),

First Maclise edition, in the original boards, “one of the finest covers of the early Victorian period, probably designed by Owen Jones”—McLean (1983), page 30. Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England 29 (“a landmark … in the history of style”).

Irish Melodies and Sacred Songs
Thomas Moore. Boston: Re-printed by Munroe & Francis, 1849.

12mo (18.5 cm, 7.3”). [4], [ix]–xxxi, [5], 184 pp. Later American edition of these celebrated Hibernian-themed lyrics from the author of “Lalla Rookh.” The front free endpaper bears a rather sweet early inked inscription: “For thee, A.E.” (with a small, difficult-to-decipher signature).

Signed binding: Publisher’s striped cloth, predominantly seen in the 1840s and never common: Brown ripple-textured cloth thinly striped in light blue, covers each with blind-stamped frame and gilt-stamped harp and shamrock vignette, spine with gilt-stamped title and strapwork; front free endpaper with pressure-stamp of the Benjamin Bradley company. All edges gilt.

——————————————-
Come, Send Round the Wine

Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages, and reasoning fools’
This moment’s a flower too fair and brief
To be wither’d and stain’d by the dust of the schools.

Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue,
But while they’re fill’d from the same bright bowl,
The fool, who would quarrel for difference of hue,
Deserves not the comfort they shed o’er the soul.

Collection of fine Art Nouveau Bindings

MOORE (THOMAS) Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance, 1861—PALMER (WILLIAM T.) The English Lakes, 1908—WORDSWORTH (WILLIAM) The Poetical Works, [c.1900]—ROBERTSON (ERIC) Wordsworthshire. An Introduction to a Poet’s Country, 1911—The Queen’s Gift Book, [c.1918], early twentieth century morocco gilt, elaborate all-over “Art Nouveau” design of coloured morocco onlays and gilt on upper covers and spines, gilt dentelles, second mentioned with decorative doublures