- 51
Dowson, Ernest
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 USD
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Description
- Decorations. London: Leonard Smithers and Co., 1899.
- Paper, ink, leather
8vo (195 x 143 mm). Original white boards with gilt-pictorial decorations after a design by Giles; fine and bright binding with a trace of spotting to upper edge.
Provenance
Simon Nowell-Smith; Judith Adams Nowell Smith (bookplates).
Catalogue Note
a fine association copy of the first edition, inscribed by the publisher "To Robbie Ross in memory of Ernest Dowson Leonard Smithers March 1900".
At the time of this presentation Dowson's death was still very recent, he had only at last succumbed to the tuberculosis he had suffered from for many years on 23 February, an end no doubt hastened by his appetites for excess. Ross was Oscar Wilde's first lover and later his literary executor. If he is to be believed, he did a great deal of editing to get that author's works ready for Smithers to publish. A fine association between three key figures of the Decadent Movement.