PARADISE LOST, A POEM IN XII BOOKS

Hammersmith: Doves Press, The, 1902. full limp vellum, gilt, later paper covered boards slipcase. Doves Press. 8vo. full limp vellum, gilt, later paper covered boards slipcase. 386, (3) pages. Limited to 325 copies printed by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson (Marianne Tidcombe, The Doves Press, 37-42, Catalogue Raisonne p.20; Ransom no.5&7), of which this is one of 300 copies printed on paper. The title page and the first leaf of text have some foxing along the outer edge. Else a tight, bright, and unmarred copy housed in a later slipcase.



Title and margin notes in red. Initials designed by Grayley Hewitt and Edward Johnston. The present work is one of Walker and Cobden-Sanderson's earlier productions, and certainty one of the highlights of the Doves Press. Bound by The Doves Bindery, with bookbinder's ticket on rear pastedown.



After establishing the Doves Bindery in 1893, Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson partnered with Emery Walker to found the Doves Press in 1901. Alongside the Kelmscott, Ashendene and Vale presses it is considered one of the cornerstones of the Golden Age of Private Press, drawing heavily on the spirit of the Arts & Crafts Movement that flowered at the turn of the century. The two partners, along with Sydney Cockerell, created type based on Nicolas Jenson's Roman type (1470s), named the 'Doves Type.' Unfortunately, the relationship between the two partners deteriorated, resulting in said type being famously dumped in the Thames, where it languished until 2014, when it was rescued and subsequently digitalised.



By 1909, Walker and Cobden-Sanderson were embroiled in a long and bitter dispute involving the rights to the Doves Type as they dissolved their partnership. In the dissolution agreement, all rights to the distinctive typeface were meant to pass to Walker upon the death of Cobden-Sanderson. But on Good Friday of 1913, Cobden-Sanderson destroyed the matrices by casting them off Hammersmith Bridge and into the Thames. He began destroying the types in August of 1916, and apparently completed the task in January 1917. Indeed, over the course of about 170 trips, Cobden-Sandersa small, frail, seventy-six year old manmanaged to carry more than a ton of type from 15 Upper Mall to the Thames. In 2015, designer Robert Greenwith help from the Port of London Authoritywas able to recover 150 pieces of the original type from the waters near Hammersmith Bridge.