The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis
Eton, Privately Printed for the Author by Ingalton and Deake, August 1862.
Octavo, [iv] (blank), 20 pages plus an albumen paper photograph (91 × 57 mm) of the author mounted on an early binder's blank.
Extensively gilt-tooled dark green morocco with marbled endpapers ('Bound by Birdsall, Wood Street Northampton'); top edge gilt; covers slightly rubbed, bowed and tanned around the extremities; an excellent copy.
A lavish photographically-illustrated presentation copy of this very rare volume of verse, published by the future prime minister while still at Eton. It is inscribed and signed under his courtesy title, Lord Dalmeny: 'To dear Mr Cheney, from his very affect., Dalmeny. Sept. 16, 1862. Badger'. The recipient is Edward Cheney (1803-1884), notable art collector, early member of the Philobiblon Society, and associate of Rosebery's at the time (Brian Hillyard: 'Rosebery as Book Collector', in 'The Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society', Number 7, 2012; page 87). Cheney's seat was Badger Hall in Shropshire; his library was dispersed in 1886. Mounted on the front pastedown is his discreet bookplate ('E.C. | Fato Prudentia Major'). 'In 1862 a slim volume containing "The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis", together with "Two Efforts in Blank Verse", were [sic] "Privately printed for the Author" at Eton. His version of the Greek legend shows remarkable promise for a boy of fifteen ... "Please show the little book to no one," he writes to Lord Stanhope, when sending his literary uncle a copy gorgeously bound in green morocco' (Marquess of Crewe: 'Lord Rosebery', 1931; page 21). The book appears to be extremely scarce; we can trace no copy in any British institutional collection or in book auction records, and we may presume that only a handful of copies were printed for private presentation.
Item #136754
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Status: Reserved