David Chambers, whose books were sold earlier this year, owned a copy of the Vale Press edition of Hand and Soul by D.G. Rossetti published in 1899. It was one of those works that, remarkably, were hugely popular at the end of the nineteenth century (just like E.B. Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese). Ricketts’s admiration for Rossetti must have been the reason for yet another edition.
A peculiar typographical error was made in the page numbering, which was noted by the artists and collector Rainforth Armitage Walker, whose copy was part of the Chambers collection (we see his pencilled note on the first free end leaf: 'D.J.C. | 222.54'.
On the same page, Walker had made an ink inscription:
Early copy before errorin Page 39 was discovered
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| Note by R.A. Walker in D.G. Rossetti, Hand and Soul (Vale Press, 1899) |
Walker was not entirely correct. It is true that page 39 is apparently numbered ‘36’ (because the 9 is upside down), but this was not corrected during printing. The later copies printed on vellum also contain the same typographical error. There are therefore no ‘early’ and ‘later’ copies – they all suffer from the same oversight.
However, the mistake was made with a certain consistency, as there is also something peculiar about the facing page number - 38: the 8 is also placed upside down. The upper loop is slightly larger than the lower one, whereas in the design of the number 8 it is always the other way round (if there is any difference at all).
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Page numbers 38 and 39 in
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Ricketts did not design any numerals for his three typefaces. Nor did Lucien Pissarro for his ‘Brook’ typeface from the Eragny Press. However, William Morris – whom both had taken as their inspiration – had done so for his Kelmscott Press publications. The Doves Press also had its own set of numerals.
Ricketts resorted to a typeface he had used in the so-called ‘Pre-Vale’ editions: Caslon – that is to say, one of the many versions of Caslon. The font is larger than that used in Hero and Leander (1894), for example. It corresponds to that used in the 1893 edition of Daphnis and Chloe.
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Some page numbers in
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For an artist who strove for unity in book design, it remains strange that Ricketts did not take the trouble or invest the money in creating his own set of numerals.
