First edition with illustrations by Fred Mason. Finely bound by Willa Moore for the Guild of Women Binders in a characteristic binding of full tan morocco with an exquisite 'mediaeval' embossed design covering the entire binding and featuring characters from the text. All edges gilt in the rough. Turn-ins tooled simply in blind with a single gilt rule and pink swirling, hand dyed endpapers. Binder's label to the rear end paper. Six full page black and white plates by Fred Mason, in the style of Edward Burne Jones, as well as a two page illustrated title page, illustrated and bordered chapter headings and a tail piece. All hand coloured by Gloria Cardew, with her label to the front end paper. A superb, fine copy, the binding very clean and crisp with just the slightest wear to the outer corners, housed in original slipcase. Internally very fresh. A superb example.

An exceptional combination of Arts and Crafts bookbinding and book production.
The narrative of the book: an Arthurian style, 13th century, French epic chivalric romance, telling the tale of a Knight, who having unwittingly killed the son of Charlemagne, must fulfil a series of seeming impossible tasks to avoid execution, is very much the sort favoured by the Arts & Crafts movement and this style of binding came to be described in the Guild of Women Binders catalogue as a 'mediaeval binding'.
The principle of Cardew's hand colouring as a means of adding value was introduced by the enterprising bookseller, Frank Karslake. Having established The Hampstead Bindery and later The Guild of Women Binders to enhance the books he was offering, Karslake employed Cardew's services to add colour to the woodcut illustrations. The process was painstaking and doubtless time consuming but the effect could be spectacular. It would appear that Karslake bought small quantities of fine press books, or similar for colouring or binding, but the labour intensive nature of these productions mean the numbers must have been very small and they are now seldom offered in commerce.
Willa St. George Moore, identified by a cutting from an early Guild of Women Binders catalogue inserted to the reverse of the front endpaper, was an early pupil of Annie Macdonald, who pioneered the revival of this style of moulded binding in the early 1890s, and became one of the most prominent members of Guild. Moore's work is no less skilled and is characterised by working in detailed scenes from the text.

Stock ID: 46566