Rossetti, Christina

Estimate

2,500 - 3,500 USD

bidding is closed

Description

Rossetti, Christina
Sing-song. A nursery rhyme book. . . . With one hundred and twenty illustrations by Arthur Hughes. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1872.
Paper, ink, leather

12mo (182 x 135 mm). Original gilt-decorated green cloth; fine. Half morocco case.

Provenance

Jerome Kern (bookplate, sale Anderson Galleries, New York, January 21, 1929, lot 999).

Literature

Fredeman 44.6; Ashley IV, p. 101; Tinker 1788; CBEL III, 497; CBEL (3) IV, 659.

Catalogue Note

First edition. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front flyleaf: "Holman Stephens with C. G. R.'s love." Tipped in is a two-page ALS dated December 28, 1871, which reads: "My dear Holly, Please thank your Papa for his kind note, -- and thank you very much for the portrait which in a way brings your little face before me though it shows me no pink or blue or yellow. My love to your Mamma." Inserted with the letter is an autograph poem, also written for the recipient: "Common Holly bears a berry/ To make the Xmas Robins merry: -- / Golden Holly bears a rose, / Unfolding at October's close / To cheer an old Friend's eyes and nose." Also tipped in at the end is a one-page fragment of a manuscript by Christina Rossetti; the subject is St. Mark, and the leaf is possibly from one of the devotional books she wrote towards the end of her life.