Rappaccini's Daughter
Greenbrae, California: The Allen Press, 1991.
Limited Edition. Hardcover.
Allen Press Book #56. Limited edition of one hundred fifteen copies. The typeface is Romanee, and the display running headlines is Cancelleresca Bastarda: both faces were designed by Jan Van Krimpen in Holland; both faces were set by hand at The Allen Press. The paper is all-rag and acid-free; it is mould made Rives from France, and printed damp on an 1882 Albion handpress made in Scotland, a make used exclusively by the revivalist presses of Kelmscott, Doves and Ashendene. The press was found in London by Caroline & Victor Hammer while the Allens were living in the south of France. Designed and produced entirely by hand by Lewis & Dorothy Allen at The Allen Press. Prospectus laid in.
With Reflections on Hawthorne by Edgar Allan Poe, Anthony Trollope, and Henry James. Wood-Engravings - images of the poisonous flowers featured in the text - by John DePol, and printed directly from the end-grain boxwood. From a Gothic short story first published in the December 1844 issue of The U.S. Magazine and Democratic Review in New York. A medical researcher in Padua grows a garden of poisonous plants that is tended by his daughter. His daughter grows up to be immune to the poisons, but she has become toxic to others.
Item #9025257-3/8 x 11-1/8", Italian floral decorated cloth with off-white spine label printed in black, blue endpapers, deckled edges, unpaginated, (approximately 100pp), at least two colors on every page and with opening Egyptian drawings hand-colored by Dorothy Allen.
A bit of light toning to paste-down endpaper at gutters, clean, bright, crisp, square, very fine in original acetate dust wrapper. Prospectus toned at fold.
Price: $400.00