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The Collation

"A superfluous luxury": the St. Dunstan illuminated editions

If you’re a regular user of the internet, you probably saw a multitude of images posted for the Bard’s birthday a few weeks ago. I can almost guarantee, though, that few were as opulent as the contribution from the University of Missouri Libraries Special Collections Tumblr: a beautiful leather-bound set of Shakespeare’s Sonnets with some striking illuminations.

On a whim, I did a quick search to see if the Folger also had a copy of this set—and we do! It was photographed for our Bindings Image Collection and is now fully cataloged in Hamnet (Folio PR2848 1901a Sh.Col.).

St. Dunstan Sonnets (front covers; part I on left)

St. Dunstan Sonnets (front covers; part I on left)

The colophon shows us that this is a St. Dunstan edition, specially illuminated for Howard T. Goodwin and signed by the illuminator, the publisher, and a representative of the University Press.

St. Dunstan Sonnets (colophon, part I)

St. Dunstan Sonnets (colophon, part I)

A revival of the lost art of illumination

  1. Exhibition of the Society of Arts and Crafts (Boston: Society of Arts and Crafts, 1907), pg 60.
  2. The St. Dunstan Volumes (London & New York: George D. Sproul, 1900?), foreword. Many thanks to John Overholt for providing a scan of Houghton Library’s copy of this resource.
  3. The Academy and Literature, in its coverage of the St. Dunstan edition of Dickens (also discussed in this blog post), noted that “It has been difficult heretofore to obtain satisfactory results from type on parchment, but the secret process of the University Press in Boston, which is doing the work, gives a clear, clean imprint which does not affect the life of the parchment.”
  4. Little information about the Trautz-Bauzonnet Bindery is available. As described in the Folger’s Bindings Image Collection, “This American (?) firm apparently assumed the name of the famous 19th-century Parisian firm, the collaboration of Antoine Bauzonnet (1795-1886) and Georges Trautz (1808-1879).” The Literary Collector was more succinct, referring to “the Trautz-Bauzonnet Bindery (whatever that may be).”
  5. Leoni would later become famous for an illuminated broadsheet of the Declaration of Independence. You can see a quick glimpse of Leoni’s process in this short video from 1943.
  6. Sale Catalogs: Miscellaneous (New York: American Art Association, 1917), pg. 147.
  7. Academy and Literature, vol. 62 (London: Academy Publishing Company, 22 January 1902), pgs 76–77.
  8. Literary Collector, volumes 7-8 (1904), page 55. Mrs. Blodgett’s son, on behalf of his mother’s estate, eventually brought five separate suits against George D. Sproul.
  9. Publisher’s Weekly, no. 1956 (1909), page 218.
  10. New York Times, “Books this man’s ruin,” February 20, 1903.
  11. Part II was not sold at that auction, and it is not clear whether Goodwin had received it before his death. As Part I is hand-inscribed for Goodwin (by Ross Turner) and Part II is not, this may indicate that the volume was incomplete at the time of Goodwin’s death, and was re-routed to another subscriber in his place. Part II was acquired by Folger at another auction in 1917.

Comments

A fascinating item; many thanks. You say the cost of the Dickens would have been “a neat $130,000 (130 volumes at $10,000 each)”, but there’s a flaw in that math.

William Ingram — May 19, 2015

Reply

Whoops, thanks for pointing out that typo! The superfluous zero has been deleted.

Sarah Werner — May 19, 2015

Reply

What a wonderful and informative article. I really enjoyed the images, too. Goodwin’s story is a sad one. I love books – especially rare and unique ones – but I cannot imagine the sort of obsession that would drive a man to embezzle funds to pay for his collection and then to commit suicide. Fascinating bit of history!

Mimi Matthews — May 20, 2015

Reply

George D. Sproul was my great-grandfather, and it’s great to see the books I’ve heard about all my life. He was a man with a vision. Both my mother (his granddaughter) and I are writers. It must run in the blood.

Barbara Sylvain — March 8, 2017

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