The Poetical Works of … Chaucer. With an Essay ... Notes and a Glossary. By Thomas Tyrwhitt.

FINE BINDING by Henry WISEMAN of Cambridge. – Geoffrey CHAUCER (c.1343-1400).

The Poetical Works of … Chaucer. With an essay on his language and versification, and an introductory discourse; together with Notes and a Glossary. By Thomas Tyrwhitt. London & New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1871. Octavo (9 1/8 x 6in; 232 x 152mm). Pp.[i-]viii-x[-xii; i-]ii-lxx; [i-ii; 1-501[-502]. Engraved additional title with vignette, engraved portrait frontispiece. (Spotting to portrait and additional title).Contemporary red morocco by Wiseman of Cambridge (signed on front free endpaper), bound for St. John’s College, Cambridge, with the college’s arms in gilt at the centre of both covers, enclosed by blind-tooled borders with acorn tools at each corner, the spine in five compartments with raised bands, tooled in git with the badges of the college in the first and fifth compartments, titled in gilt in the second compartment, the other two with the acorn tool in blind, turn-ins ruled in bind, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt (some very light scuffing [see images])

Provenance: T.T. Gurney (signature, graduate of St. John’s College, Cambridge, later Professor T.T. Gurney of Sydney University, Australia).

An attractive copy of this enduring classic: Wiseman’s have used a neo-Gothic design that is entirely suitable as an accompaniment to the work of ‘the Father of English Poetry”.