[Fine Binding | Bagguley | Vale Press] Shakespeare's Sonnets

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Reprinted from the Edition of 1609. London: Hacon & Ricketts [Vale Press], 1899. Wood engraved border with large decorative initial by Charles Ricketts. One of 210 copies on paper. 

Full red morocco by G.T. Bagguley, front cover with wide outer border in inlaid green morocco, triple filleted, with small square floral tools at the corners and midpoints, creating a restrained architectural frame to the more organic interior. The inner panel formed by a dense, all-over field of small gilt leaf tools, enclosing a central vertical panel in dark green morocco. This panel carries three elongated poppy-like forms in gilt and inlaid off-white, their stems rising and falling symmetrically, with additional small leaf sprays worked into the ground. Back cover plain, with three gilt rules. Flat spine with three tooled compartments, central compartment with stylized plant ornament in gilt, lettered vertically above and below. Turn-ins simply tooled with same gilt frame as the cover. Plain endpapers, top edge gilt. 

Measures approx. 5.75" x 8.5". Holiday greeting card from Bagguley loosely inserted. A few minor spots of rubbing to edges, corners a bit worn.

An absolutely stunning Arts & Crafts design (with some Art Nouveau influence).

George Thomas Bagguley (b. 1860) established a bookselling and binding business in Newcastle-under-Lyme circa 1890. Though listed primarily as a bookseller, binding was carried out on the premises, and the firm employed a number of highly skilled finishers. Bagguley is best known for his patented “Sutherland” process (1895), a method of tooling in color and gilt, typically applied to vellum doublures.