An unsigned binding by Albert Henry Warren for <span class="book">The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe</span> [version one]

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Binding

Albert Henry Warren; unsigned

[1868]

Green cloth with a gilt design

9¼ x 6½ inches

This complex binding was used on several books, sometimes with Warren’s monogram marked on the spine, and sometimes not; it is missing from the present example. The division of space and the variety of floral motifs – some classical, some in the Renaissance style, and some naturalistic – are typical of Warren’s idiom. The over-stated gilt suggests that the title was considered a hard sell. [Continued below]

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Photograph and text by Simon Cooke

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Its market-appeal was enhanced by the presence of illustrations by Birket Foster, but the binding’s visual impact, with its combination of red lettering set against a golden mandorla, was and is considerable. Purely decorative, it suggests nothing of the content of Poe’s verse, wrapping his grim Gothicism in a flamboyant package. Such discontinuities were noted by contemporary critics, who protested at the apparently arbitrary juxtapositions of texts and bindings that had nothing in common and reduced book-design to a jumble of incongruities.

Bibliography

The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Illustrated by Birket Foster and with a binding designed by A. H. Warren. London: Ward, Lock & Tyler [1867].

Created 17 November 2016