Book details
$US 375.00
Pollok, Robert
The Course of Time, a Poem.
Imprint: New York, Charles Wells, 1833
Binding: Hardback
Inscription: Signed, Inscribed Or Annotated
12mo., brown polished calf with a repeated blind stamped design of YORK CATHEDRAL WEST FRONT on both covers; spine also stamped in blind with the addition of the author's last name in gilt. The relief remains very high, deep enough to easily read the legend describing the scene at the bottom of the plate.The Course of Time must have been a popular title. Two copies (one published in 1831 and the other in 1833) are catalogued by Edwin Wolf II in his From Gothic Windows to Peacocks: American Embossed Leather Bindings 1825-1855 (No. 29), but neither of them is in a "Cathedral" binding. Mr. Wolf does, though, in Item 32, show a rubbing of the VERY SAME VIEW of the York Minster on a LARGE Bible, but as seen from a sLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE. These differences, added to the fact that the Bible plate is signed by the English bookbinder, Westley (ours is unsigned), leads to the conclusion that the binding on the copy being offered is ALTOGETHER AMERICAN (i.e. the plate is a reduced copy of Westley's design, as seen from a slightly different angle). American "Cathedral" bindings of this quality and in this condition are highly desirable, especially when American-made plates have been employed.See: Wolf. pp. 58-67
AMERICAN "CATHEDRAL" BINDING
Stock number:526.