BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE BOOKS ISSUED BY HACON & RICKETTS, PRINTED IN THE THREE FOUNTS, THE 'VALE', THE 'AVON', AND THE 'KING'S'.|A Bibliography,Fine Press Books

8vo. Original holland-backed powder blue boards with title label to spine and upper cover printed in red. (iii), iv-xli, (1) pages. First edition, one of 250 copies. Spine and cover labels show slight chipping and toning, light bump to bottom edge of back board, else near fine in linen-backed blue boards. Printed in black & red, wood-engraved frontispiece by Charles Ricketts after Charles Shannon's signboard for the Vale Press premises, together with woodcut initial within double-page decorative border, woodcut tailpiece device facing colophon. The last publication by the Vale Press, and the first formal notice of Ricketts' intention to consign the punches and matrices to the bottom of the Thames: 'As it is undesirable that these founts should drift into other hands than their designers' and become stale by unthinking use, it has been decided to destroy the punches, matrices and type.this bibliography, therefore, contains the the three founts brought together for the first and last time. The punches and matrices are for the most part in the Thames, and on the completion of the last page of this pamphlet, the type becomes type metal again.' The matrices for these fonts had in fact been consigned to the British Museum, but were subsequently mislaid. Ricketts was not the last to attempt to dispose of fonts aquatically, more famously perhaps was the elderly Cobden-Sanderson's consignment of the Doves Press type to the Thames a decade later, following an acrimonious split with fellow Doves founder Emery Walker. Esther Pissarro would likewise dispose of the Eragny Press types during a channel crossing. Watry B46. Original holland-backed powder blue boards with title label to spine and upper cover printed in red