POEMS (FORE-EDGE PAINTINGS). INGELOW, JEAN Fore-Edge Paintings,Poetry,Women - Authors and Artists

240 x 165 mm. (9 1/2 x 6 1/2"). xiv, [2], 318 pp., [1] leaf (printer's device). Pleasing contemporary scarlet morocco by Riviere (signed on front flyleaf), covers framed by gilt fillets, oblique arabesque tools at corners opposed by small floral tools, raised bands, spine gilt in compartments with wheat sheaf fleuron centerpieces, gilt-tooled turn-ins, all edges gilt. WITH AN EXCELLENT FORE-EDGE PAINTING DEPICTING BOROUGH MARKET in the Southwark district of London. With wood-engraved frontispiece and 97 engravings in the text by G. J. Pinwell, E. J. Poynter, J. W. North, E. Dalziel, J. Wolf, T. Dalziel, A. B. Houghton, and W. Small. Ray, England, 155. Joints and extremities more than a bit worn (though nicely refurbished), the once beautiful binding otherwise solid and still pleasing; internally with uneven foxing (generally light) to about two-thirds of the volume, the remainder quite clean and fresh, with only trivial defects, and with the fore-edge painting well preserved. This attractively illustrated edition of the verses of a Victorian female poet boasts a charming fore-edge painting. Our author, Jean Ingelow (1820-97), had been writing since a young age, producing a small periodical with her brother and pseudonymously publishing poems as "Orris" before her 1850 "A Rhyming Chronicle of Incidents and Feelings." This, her second work, was first released in 1863, and established her reputation as a writer. She became a fixture in the literary scene, writing novels and children's stories along with poetry, maintaining friendships with major writers of her day including Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning. She additionally had ties to the Pre-Raphaelites: one of her works was illustrated by Millais, and she was friends with Christina Rossetti. Our illustrated edition of her "Poems" was the third in a series of four illustrated books put out by the Dalziel brothers between 1866-68 which Ray tells us "might well be selected to represent the illustrators of the sixties at their most characteristic." The pleasing fore-edge painting here depicts a lively, even amusing scene taking place in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral at Borough Market, an area of exchange thought to have been in operation continuously since the 12th century. Merchants have rather uncarefully unloaded horse carts, presumably in the early morning before buyers arrive, with agricultural products spread about in what seems to be a sense of hurried anticipation. The colors and detail are excellent.