I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
After Worcester Fight
London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1904. Item #05090
A Finely Decorated Bayntun-Rivière Cosway-Style Binding from the Library of J.F.D. Tutt
COSWAY-STYLE BINDING. BAYNTUN-RIVIÈRE, binders. FEA, Allan. After Worcester Fight. Being a Companion Volume to "The Flight of the King" by Allan Fea. With Numerous Sketches & Photographs by the Author, together with Portraits. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1904.
First edition. Octavo (8 1/4 x 5 3/8 inches; 210 x 136 mm.). [i]-liv, 1-[268] pp. Title-page printed in red and black. Fifty-one illustrations including many photogravure plates. Text leaves a little foxed.
Bound by Bayntun (Rivière) Bath ca. 1948 (stamp-signed in gilt on front turn-in) in full dark purple crushed levant morocco over beveled boards. Front cover double-ruled in gilt enclosing a highly elaborate floral design with gilt leaves and stems and twelve inlaid eighteen-piece red flowers. In the center an gilt decorated oval frame surrounding a fine hand-painted portrait miniature of Charles II. Lower cover identically tooled but without the inlays. Spine with five raised bands, elaborately decorated to a similar design with five inlaid eighteen-piece red flowers, lettered in gilt in compartments, double gilt-ruled board edges, and fine wide turn-ins decorated in gilt. Blue and red cockerel paste-downs and end-leaves, all edges gilt. With the armorial bookplate of J.F.D. Tutt on verso of front free endpaper. An exceptionally fine example from one of the major English collections. Housed in the original fleece-lined blue cloth slipcase with two black morocco spine labels lettered in gilt.
Allan Fea (1860-1956), was a British historian and author, specializing in the English Civil Wars period and the House of Stuart, and an antiquary, after a first career as a clerk at the Bank of England.
After Worcester Fight is a companion volume to the author's earlier work The Flight of the King.
"Since the publication of "The Flight of the King," it has often occurred to me that there should be a companion supplementary volume containing the five important contemporary narratives of Charles II.s escape after the Battle of Worcester, which were issued collectively in 1830, under the title of "The Boscobel Tracts," viz. :-- "The King's Narrative," Blount's "Boscobel," Whitgreave's "Narrative," "Ellesdon's Letter," and the "Claustrum Regale Reseratum."
(introduction).
John Francis Donald Tutt (1893-1971) was a renowned veterinary surgeon and collector of fine bindings. His collection (including the present binding) was sold at Sotheby's London in October 1983.
Price: $6,500.00