Author: Cowper, William; Westall, Richard (illustrator).
Title: The Task [with] Cowper's Minor Poems [with] Table Talk and Other Poems (3 Vols).
Description: London, Chiswick Whittingham Press (Printed for John Sharpe, by C. & C. Whittingham), 1825. Each volume: Hardback very small (duodecimo), original brown full calf leather, gilt edges, gilt ornate decoration & letters (spine & edges covers), very good condition, marbled edges & endpapers, steel engraved plates, minor to moderate foxing some pages, string bookmarks missing, minor edgewear covers, owner's written name, owner's rubber stamp. Volume 3 only: faint stain front cover, gilt spine lettering lightly rubbed. 220 + 204 + 108 pp. Fine binding. Originally published in 1817, this is the 1825 edition. A handsome set of Cowper's poems printed by the famous printers C. and C. Whittingham of Chiswick, with illustrations by Richard Westall. Charles Whittingham (1767 - 1840) was an English printer. In 1789 he set up a small printing press in a garret off Fleet Street, London, with a loan obtained from the type-founding firm of William Caslon, and, by 1797, his business had so increased that he was enabled to move into larger premises. Whittingham inaugurated the idea of printing cheap, handy editions of standard authors, and, on the bookselling trade threatening not to sell his productions, took a room at a coffee house and sold them by auction himself. In 1809 he started a paper-pulp factory at Chiswick, near London, and in 1811 founded the Chiswick Press.

Keywords: poetry, collectible, collectable, fine bindings


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