John MILTON

Illustrated edition with 24 colour plates by Arthur Rackham tipped in with captioned tissue guards, 8 full-page black-and-white illustrations, together with numerous ornaments and vignettes in the text by Arthur Rackham, one of 300 copies printed on vélin à la forme, signed by Arthur Rackham on the limitation page.
Publisher’s Bradel binding in full bright white vellum, smooth spine lettered in gilt, upper cover gilt-stamped with the title and a design of fantastic animals within a vertical gilt rule, illustrated endpapers and pastedowns, top edge gilt, untrimmed edges preserved. 
A very well-preserved copy of Milton's baroque and Dionysian spectacle, superbly illustrated by Rackham.

Provenance: manuscript ex-libris on the half-title of Maurice Feuillet, a renowned press illustrator, particularly noted for major court cases, as well as an art critic and founder of the Figaro artistique. Feuillet is remembered for his courtroom sketches during the trials of Émile Zola in 1898 and Alfred Dreyfus in 1899.

Second Elzevir edition of Milton's first text, which was originally published in 1651 in Amsterdam. First edition of Milton's Second and Third Defences.
Full polished tobacco calf bindings, ca. 1820. Spines with raised bands, decorated with four floral tools, fillets and rolls. Chocolate morocco title and volume labels. Cold-stamped border on the boards with small corner fleurons. Inner roll-tooled border. All edges gilt. A handsome copy.


NB: This volume is available at the bookshop on request within 48 hours.