Bryony

63 Unpublished Designs With Introduction by Holbrook Jackson By Claud Lovat Fraser 1924

__Publisher: First Editions Club__


 * Founded in 1922 by AJA Symons to publish limited editions and to organize exhibitions of rare books and manuscripts.
 * In 1930 he founded the Book Collector’s Quarterly which became the club’s official publication.


 * The club operated from Vestry Hall at the Church of St George in Little Russell Street near the British Museum, with the help of a series of financial backers, including the Foyle brothers whose famous bookstore in Charing Cross once owned the world record for largest bookstore in the world.
 * However the club never achieved its target of 600 members to break even, this decline accelerated by the Depression, and the company was eventually wound up involving significant losses to its backers.
 * “No one so poor has lived so well”—AJA Symons.

__Holbrook Jackson__
 * Was a British journalist, writer and publisher and was recognized as one of the leading bibliophiles of his time.
 * In 1913 he set up the Flying Fame Press with Ralph Hodgson and Claud Lovat Fraser to produce decorative poetry broadsides and chapbooks. They were affordably priced and aimed to make poetry more accessible to the general public
 * Patron of Pelican Press and encouraged the raising of production standards of books.

__ Claud Lovat Fraser __




 * Was an English artist, designer and author and attended Westminster School of Art.
 * Died in 1921 (three years before the book was published) though there's no mention of this in the book.
 * Along with co-establishing The Sign of the Flying Fame, he also fought in WWI and produced many sketches until he was invalided at home suffering from shellshock.
 * After the war he made designes for the Curwen Press and executed private commissions for bookplates, stationery and greeting cards.

__A Shropshire Lad__ . Edition from 1995
 * Book of 63 illustrations intended to illustrate A.E. Housman's __A Shropshire Lad__, a cycle of sixty-three poems.
 * Each of the illustrations have been numbered with their corresponding poem as it was believed that there was one illustration for each poem, however upon further inspection it was found three of the illustrations did not correlate to a specific poem so were labelled "Back half of title", "Contents", and "Contents II".
 * This meant poems XXVII, XXXIII, and XLV were left with no decoration
 * In the introduction Holbrook Jackson discusses the possible reason A.E. Housman would not permit the designs to be used.
 * He suggests that poetry should remain "neat" and therefore shouldn't be illustrated and that this could be a possible reason.
 * This isn't the case howeve, as Housman permitted A Shropshire Lad to appear in an illustrated edition (the first illustrated edition appeared in 1908 with illustration by an artist named William Hyde)
 * Holbrook takes consolation that Claud Lovat Fraser's illustrations will be usable when copyright runs out. "Twenty or thirty short years hence publishers will be falling over one another in the effort to have first honours (and profits) from bringing about their wedding."
 * This came into fruition in 1995 (71 years after the publication of Fraser's designs)

__The Book__
 * There were only 500 of the books printed, each labelled what number they are (this edition is number 143).
 * The illustrations consist of engravings printed onto hand-dyed Ingres paper.
 * There are watermarks throughout the book which read "Ingres D Arches" and "MBM (France)"
 * Arches MBM Ingres is a laid paper developed for drawing. It is favored in book arts for its pH neutrality.


 * The engraved decorations are similar to decorations created for his chapbooks published by Flying Fame. In the introduction Holbrook suggests a further issue with Fraser's illustrations could be his tendency towards his theatrical interpretations of certain themes.
 * The size of the book (6.35 X 5 ins) coupled with the direction of the chain lines suggest the book is a quarto.


 * At the back of the book someone has stuck in a review from a newspaper about it.
 * The binding is an example of a publishers binding as it was designed by Claud Lovat Fraser