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| Charles Ricketts, cover design for Gordon Bottomley, King Lear's Wife, The Crier by Night, The Riding to Lithend, Midsummer Eve, Laodice and Danaë (1920) |
In 1920, Constable & Company Limited published the first of four sumptuous books of plays and poems by Gordon Bottomley, all with cover designs by Charles Ricketts. In each case, two editions appeared: a regular trade edition and a deluxe edition. The correspondence shows that this was initiated by the publisher, which means the firm saw potential profit in Bottomley's work. Ricketts provided his designs as a gift to the author. Bottomley received copies of the regular edition of King Lear's Wife, The Crier by Night, The Riding to Lithend, Midsummer Eve, Laodice and Danaë on 8 July 1920, the deluxe copies arrived on 9 August.
I am very glad indeed to hear your idea of doing a small edition in vellum or white cloth; I shall of course be happy to sign these special copies, or to do anything else that will further the project. I should be glad if we could make some arrangement to have four copies done for me in addition to those you are doing for sale: I might say that none of these would be sent to people likely to buy the special copies. In carrying out this idea I wonder if it would be possible to stamp the design in gold? Ricketts tells me he designed it with that purpose in view, and it would be nice to see a few copies done so – though I hasten to add that he also approves the blue and grey for the ordinary edition.
(Letter from Gordon Bottomley to Michael Sadler, 24 April 1920, Temple, Constable Archive, cf. The Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore at Intelex PastMasters, letter 434, 19-21 October 1920, note 19).
When the regular edition had been published, Bottomley wrote to Thomas Sturge Moore that he would have to wait a little longer for his copy. The bookbinder needed more time for the deluxe edition.
The book is out; I expect you will have seen the advertisement in the T.L.S., so you will be expecting your copy to turn up soon, and I hasten to tell you it will not be ready just yet as I am having a special copy bound for you as Ricketts meant it to be.
(Letter from Gordon Bottomley to T. Sturge Moore, cf. The Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore at Intelex PastMasters (letter 399), 8 July 1920.)
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| Advertisement, The Times Literary Supplement, 24 June 1920 |
The design was ready in 1915, but it was not until after the war that the publisher was able to finance the book. Actually, all copies should have been bound in white buckram with the design printed in gold, but only the fifty numbered and signed copies were so executed. The regular edition has the design on a brown cardboard, printed in blue.
It did not end with those fifty copies, for Bottomley had six more copies bound identically for himself, but without the limitation statement (in the deluxe editions this is printed on the page facing the title page).
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| Gordon Bottomley, King Lear's Wife, The Crier by Night, The Riding to Lithend, Midsummer Eve, Laodice and Danaë (1920) |
The additional deluxe copies are mentioned in a letter from Bottomley to T.S. Moore:
(Letter from Gordon Bottomley to T. Sturge Moore, cf. The Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore at Intelex PastMasters, letter 434, 19-21 October 1920.)
The price of the deluxe edition was not mentioned in the advertisement in The Times Literary Supplement, but a leaflet issued in 1925 mentions 31s. 6d.
The edition of the three later Bottomley books published by Constable included lettered copies in addition to the numbered copies, and these were often used by the author as dedication copies. Oddly enough, the edition of these later books may also include deluxe copies without a limitation statement. At least one such copy is known of Poems of Thirty Years (1925), which is curious, because there were already seventy-five deluxe copies for sale, in addition to twelve copies for presentation. Possibly, regular copies were bound in deluxe left-over bindings.
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| Gordon Bottomley, King Lear's Wife, The Crier by Night, The Riding to Lithend, Midsummer Eve, Laodice and Danaë (1920) |
