The auction includes many items that are connected to the work of Charles Ricketts and/or Charles Shannon, one of these lots containing as many as 29 books.
One outstanding and amazing item is lot 49, a copy of the first edition of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) for which Ricketts designed the cover, the title-page and the preface. This copy, however, annotated by Wilde's bibliographer C.S. Millard ('Stuart Mason'), has a different cover, described as 'FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM, IN A TRIAL BINDING', and as: 'publisher's half vellum over grey bevelled boards, upper cover with gilt design by Ricketts incorporating title and inverted pyramid of "butterflies", t.e.g., upper hinge restored, worn'. [See Bonhams website for the complete description. This copy also featured in the exhibition catalogue of 2021 (page 30, number 33).]
The identification as 'trial copy' dates back to 1928, when Dulau & Company offered the book in catalogue 161, Oscar Wilde, featuring works from the collections of Robert Ross, C.S. Millard, and Vyvyan Holland: 'Evidently an early trial copy.' However, this information was not endorsed or confirmed by the bibliographer himself!
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| Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): 'trial binding' [Photo: Bonhams] |
The original binding has proven to be fragile, and more than 130 years later, many copies have been restored or rebound.
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| Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): detail of 'trial binding' [Photo: Bonhams] |
Ricketts designed various decorations for the regular and large paper editions, both for the spine and the front cover, while the spine decoration was also printed on the back cover of the deluxe edition.
In this case, we can only compare the title and decoration on the front cover with the final edition – the title on the spine of the Mason copy was clearly not designed by Ricketts. This alone is reason enough to take a close look at the binding: a book bound in half vellum with vellum corners does not confirm that we are dealing with a Ricketts binding.
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| Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): detail of front cover |
Evidently an early trial copy? I am not so sure. It is striking that none of the details of the decoration or lettering correspond to the later design, which would mean that Ricketts came up with a completely different drawing during the design process. If so, he apparently decided to replace the dotted circles and stars in the title with others, redrawing all the letters and deciding not to let the tail of the “R” flow into the “Y”, because in the final design there is a small gap between that tail and the letter “Y”, whose tail points in the opposite direction. The characters in the “trial” are remarkably elongated compared to the later ones. The ten decorations below the title (in an inverted pyramid shape) also differ significantly from what Ricketts designed for the definitive binding.
This object does not display the hesitant efforts of an artist striving for the best result, searching for a better design or revising his earlier thoughts. On the contrary, it shows the amateurism and sloppiness of an imitator. This is the work of a later bookbinder trying to imitate the design. There is nothing to suggest that this copy is a trial binding based on a design by Ricketts himself. It is an imitation made when the book was rebound because the original binding had failed. This happened very often; the simplest restoration involved a new spine, while the front cover was retained. This is the case, for example, with the rebacked copy in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, using similar and different floral designs (Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library: PR 5819 A1 1891).
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| Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): spine (detail) Copy in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Assenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library (PR 5819 A1 1891) |
In my opinion, this is not a 'trial copy' – Ricketts was keen to have proofs and sketches destroyed.
Nevertheless, this Mason & Mason copy (Stuart & Jeremy) remains an important item because of the annotations made by C.S. Millard, who used it to compare the text with that in the first edition in magazine form.
Note
After publishing this blog today, I received a response from Lorenza Gay, associate specialist at Bonhams, stating that they had examined the book again and discovered a bookbinder's ticket. The description now includes this Saleroom Notice:
Identified as a 'trial binding' by Dulau in 1928, but bears bookbinder's stamp of 'Morley. Oxford' on turn-in inside upper cover. Therefore probably an imitation of the publisher's binding.
