[The Kelmscott Press]. Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century.

[The Kelmscott Press]. – Sydney C. COCKERELL and William MORRIS.

Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century.

[colophon: edited by S.C. Cockerell, and printed at the Kelmscott Press, Upper Mall, Hammersmith. Finished on the 15th day of December, 1897].

Large quarto (11 ½ x 8 1/2in; 292 x 216mm). Golden type, printed in red and black. 35 woodcut reproduced on 23 leaves. (Minimal signs of stamp removal from title page [see images).  Publisher’s holland-backed blue/grey paper-covered boards (minimal sign of stamp removal from pastedowns and front free endpaper, rear free endpaper removed, some discoloration to covers [see images, holland backstrip rubbed through in places, corners bumped and slightly rubbed).  Provenance: Henry W. Poor (armorial bookplate); offered at auction: Anderson Galleries ‘The Library of Henry W. Poor … Part IV’ 23-25 Feb. 1909, lot 284; deaccessioned from an institutional library (removed stamps).

Limited edition of 225 copies on paper: this example originally from ‘one of the finest private libraries in the city of New York’ (https://www.ttarchive.com/library/Biographies/Poor-HW_AmsMenOfAffairs.html).

This work lists the 131 most important illustrated incunabula in William Morris’s collection and also offers a detailed analysis of the woodcuts in the 1493 edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle.

The beautifully-executed reproductions of the woodcuts from the German incunabula in Morris’s library are prefaced by extracts from his 1894 article "On the Artistic Qualities of Woodcut Books Produced at Ulm and Augsburg in the Fifteenth Century".

William Peterson, A Bibliography of the Kelmscott Press, pages 131-134, No. A49;  Ransom, Private Presses, p. 331, no. 49;  Sparling 49, p. 170; Tomkinson, p. 121, no. 49.