Parables and Tales

Title: Parables and Tales

Author: Hake, Thomas Gordon

Publication: London: Chapman and Hall, 1872.

Description: First edition, first issue of this book of poems by Thomas Gordon Hake, illustrated by Arthur Hughes of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Incomplete, with the first poem (pp. 1-10) wanting. Black-and-white wood engravings by the Dalziel Brothers from illustrations by Hughes. Bound in full green cloth over boards, with rosette ornament and ruled border in gilt on the front cover, gilt lettering on the spine, and ruled border in blind on the back cover. 7.75 x 5.25 inches; [8], 11-98, [1] pages, [6] pages of advertisements. Former owner's signature in pencil on front free endpaper, dated 1885. Mild edgewear and rubbing to the binding and offsetting on half-title and last page of advertisements. Incomplete, but attractive and quite scarce.

There are two states of the binding of the first edition, one with a decorative cover by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and another, in various colors, with a rosette ornament centered within a lined border (as ours). The two bindings were issued simultaneously. Rossetti had been reluctant to design the elaborate decorative binding, and the copy that he presented to his own mother had the simpler binding with the rosette ornament. 

This is from the first issue of this publication and not from the reissue of 1894 using remaindered sheets, which had the same advertisements as the first issue, but a tipped-in sticker stating, "This book is now supplied by Elkin Mathews." (Fredeman, p. 23-24). 

Reference:

Fredeman, William E. "'Woodman, Spare That Block': The Published, Unpublished, and Projected Illustrations and Book Designs of Dante Gabriel Rossetti." The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, new series, no. 5, Spring 1996, pp. 7–41.?