Calligraphy and Palaeography. Essays presented to Alfred Fairbank on his 70th Birthday. Edited by A.S. Osley
London, Faber & Faber, 1965.
Quarto, xxiv (last blank), 287 pages with over 68 line illustrations plus 18 pages of plates.
Cloth; a fine copy with the very good dustwrapper a little foxed, rubbed, chipped and torn, with the spine a little sunned and lightly marked.
Alfred Fairbank (1895-1982), 'one of the most distinguished calligraphers of our time and a pioneer of the revival of italic handwriting' (dustwrapper blurb). Loosely inserted are two autograph letters. The first letter is from Fairbank himself, written in his very attractive italic script. It is a letter of thanks to Joan Gibbs, who contributed an article on the manuscript bibliographer Seymour de Ricci to this festschrift (one page octavo, on his Hove, Sussex letterhead, 11 December 1965). 'What a fascinating story it is you tell - how astringent to anybody today who held that they had done a large job! ... I wish the whole Faber party cd. be entertained in Rome for a fortnight!. Yours Alfred'. The other letter (two pages octavo, Paris, 24 September 1934) is from Seymour de Ricci to 'Dear Sir Sydney' (Sir Sydney Cockerell, 1867-1962, director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, who also has a short contribution in this book). Seymour Montefiore Robert Rosso de Ricci (1881-1942), art historian and bibliographer, writes that 'You know more than any other living man about MSS. in England and you can tell me if it is advisable to condense in 1000 pages the main data about their history, location and bibliography'. Joan Gibbs ties all the loose ends together in her informative article.
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