The Cloister and the Hearth, Illustrated by Lynd Ward, Signed Harcourt Binding

Full Title:  The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages

Binding Details:  Signed custom binding by the Harcourt Bindery, Charlestown, Massachusetts bound in full morocco leather with a spine treatment of raised bands, gold gilt titling in ruled tiles, and gold gilt central motifs. There is double gold gilt ruling to the  boards, gilt dentilles, gilt ruled edges, hand-sewn silk endbands, marbled endpapers, and the top page edges are gold gilted. The Harcourt Bindery label appears on the bottom of the last free endpaper.

Book Details:  Lynd Ward’s illustrations first appeared in the Limited Edition Club edition of The Cloister and the Hearth in 1952. This is the Heritage Press, New York edition published in the same year that contains all thirty Lynd Ward illustrations from the original edition. “In an article published in January 1898, in Munsey’s Magazine, Arthur Conan Doyle was the latest in a series of contemporary big names to write about his favourite writers and books. The novel he talks about as his particular favourite – containing more ‘accurate knowledge and ripe wisdom and passionate human emotion’ than any other – was Charles Reade’s 1861 historical romance The Cloister and the Hearth.” – The Secret Victorianist

Measures approximately 9.25” x 6.25” with 745 pages as well as an introduction by Hendrik Willem Van Loon.

Condition Report:  The binding is in FINE condition with some superficial gold gilt marks to the top spine tile. Internally, the book is very clean with no signs of previous ownership.

A photograph of the binding appears in the photo section of the listing.