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![[KELMSCOTT PRESS]; [LEFEVRE, RAOUL] - The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.](http://www.davidbrassrarebooks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-shopping-cart/books_img/01483/main.jpg)
[KELMSCOTT PRESS]; [LEFEVRE, RAOUL] The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.The Kelmscott Press's Pure, Undiluted Mediaeval History of Troy "The Most Beautiful Book I Ever Saw; It's the Most Beautiful Book Ever Printed!" [KELMSCOTT PRESS]. [LEFEVRE, Raoul]. The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye. [London: Sold by Bernard Quaritch, 1892]. One of 300 paper copies printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press. Three books in two large quarto volumes (11 1/2 x 8 in; 292 x 206 mm). xv, [1], 295, [1, blank]; [297]-507, [3, blank], [509]-718 pp. Printed in red and black in Troy and Chaucer type. Decorative woodcut borders and initials. Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. Full limp vellum with original gold silk ties. Spines lettered in gilt. An excellent set. The Kelmscott Press's magnificent reprint of the first edition of William Caxton's translation from the French of Raoul Lefevre, the first book to be printed in English (1474-75), which had long been a favorite with Morris. Although there had been a number of earlier editions of the Recuyell, the Kelmscott Press version was the first to go back directly to Caxton’s text. This was the first book printed in the black letter font forever known afterward as Troy , and the first in which Chaucer type was used (for table of contents and glossary). All of the ornaments in the margins and the initials throughout the text are by Morris. "As to the matter of the book, it makes a thoroughly amusing story, instinct with mediaeval thought and manners. For though written at the end of the Middle Ages and dealing with classical mythology, it has in it no token of the coming 'Renaissance' but is purely mediaeval. It is the last issue of the story which has had such a hold on men's imaginations; the story built up from a rumour of the Cyclic Poets, of the heroic city of Troy, defended by Priam, with his gallant sons, led by Hectoir the preux Chevalier, beset by the violent & brutal Greeks, who were looked on as the necessary machinery for bringing about the undeniable tragedy of the fall of the city. Surely this is well-worth reading, if only as a piece of undiluted Mediaevalism" (From William Morris's note for Bernard Quaritch's catalogue). In short, the "pure" history of Troy without the gloss of later Renaissance writers, and a necessary adjunct to any study of the subject. Researchers have disagreed about the scholastic value of the Caxton translation but have never dismissed its importance to the Troy canon of literature. "The most beautiful book I ever saw; it's the most beautiful book ever printed!" (Dr. Frederick James Furnivall, English philologist and co-editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, upon the book's release, as noted in Peterson). "Mr. William Morris has produced...an edition of 'The Recuyell,' which, as regards getting up and artistic execution, is all that can be desired" (H. Oskar Sommer, in his Introduction to the David Nutt edition). Clark Library, Kelmscott and Doves, pp. 18-19. Peterson A8. Ransom, Private Presses, p. 326, no. 8. Tomkinson, p. 109, no. 8. Sparling 8. Walsdorf 8.
Offered for US$ 9500.00 by: David Brass Rare Books (ABAA/ILAB) - Book number: 01483