[Fine Binding | Hardy, Maillard, Pilon] Robert the Deuyll

Thoms, William J. (editor). Robert the Deuyll, a Romance. Edinburgh: Otto Schulze & Co, 1904. One of 500 copies. One of three volumes in Schulze's Early English Prose Romances series. Illustrated w/ initials, headpieces, tailpieces by Harold Nelson. Bound in medium brown morocco by Henry Hardy, Leon Maillard, and Gaston Pilon (signed on the front turn-in). Curiously, no bindery is mentioned, but the binding likely dates to their time with the Booklover's Shop bindery. The front and rear covers feature an interlocking blind-tooled diamond and rectangle design, with the title in gilt at the center, gilt ornaments at the four corners of the rectangle, and outlined with two sets of blind-tooled rules. Five bands to spine, with title in the second compartment and a small gilt ornament in the remaining compartments. Gilt ruled turn-ins with pink mottled endpapers. Measures approx. 9" x 11.5". Some light rubbing to edges and spine. 

After the dissolution of the Club Bindery, Hardy, Maillard, and Pilon moved to Cleveland in 1909, with the establishment of the short-lived Rowfant Bindery (1909-1913), bank-rolled by Willis Vickery. The binders then were known as the Booklover's Shop bindery (1914-1917), and following a move back to New York, The French Binders (1918-1920s) (Bound to Be the Best: The Club Bindery, Boss).