LAUS VENERIS (Golden Cockerel Press)

20 pages and the colophon page, wood engraved frontispiece and title page, 9 engravings in the text, bound in quarter maroon cloth with patterned paper sides, top edge gilt, other edges uncut with some very light foxing, a very good copy.

Colophon reads: This edition of Laus Veneris has been designed, produced, and published by Christopher Sandford at the Golden Cockerel Press, London by kind permission of Messrs. William Heinemann. Composition and presswork under  the supervision of James Shand at the Shenval Press. Compositors: H.R. Sheldrake and R.J. Cracknell. Pressman: R.F. Parsley. The edition has been limited to 750 copies, of which Nos. 1-100 contain one extra engraving and are specially bound.

 Copy No. 7122

(https://victorianweb.org/authors/swinburne/hikim8.html) Laus Veneris: The Poem and the Painting.

'Algernon Charles Swinburne's dramatic and lyrical poem "Laus Veneris" and Edward Burne-Jones's subsequent painting of the same title were created within 4 years of each other, the poem in 1866 and the painting between 1873 and 1878. Swinburne's "Laus Veneris," whose Latin title translates to "the praise of Venus or love," is based on the theme of Tannhauser. In the legend, the young knight Tannhauser falls in love with Venus and lives with her in her subterranean home until he becomes filled with remorse. He escapes her snares and travels to Rome to ask Pope Urban if he could be absolved of his sins. The Pope declares it impossible, just as impossible as his papal staff blossoming. Three days after Tannhauser returns to Vienna, the Pope's staff supposedly bloomed with flowers, but the knight never learns of this divine miracle and spends his life in damnation. Throughout the poem the speaker bemoans his own enslavement to love, or this damnation, such as in this case: "Alas thy beauty! for thy mouth's sweet sake/ My soul is bitter to me, my limbs quake." His addiction to physical love and sensuality also reflects the idea of Venus's dangerous beauty, for according to the legend Venus lures Tannhauser by bathing in the woods. Swinburne's poem contains rich descriptions of atmosphere as well as the inner workings of the speaker's mind and his idea of love, which all reflect the loss of this love.'