Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, 1872, Inlaid Kelliegram Binding

Binding Details:  Beautiful pictorial inlaid leather binding signed by Kelly & Son, London in full green crushed morocco leather consisting of multicolored morocco leather of Humpty Dumpty and the Walrus on the front and rear covers as well as the Carpenter, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and other characters from the book onlaid in colored leathers on each of the four corners. The spine features dot decorated raised bands, gilt lettering to the compartments as well as highly decorative gilt designs with the date at the foot of the spine. There are gilt fillets on the board edges and the turn-ins are gilt ruled with a spray of buds at the corners. The endpapers and pastedowns are orange silk and all page ends are gold gilted. The Kelliegram Binding stamp in gilt appears on the bottom of the inside cover. The original red cloth covers and spine are bound in at the rear of the book. The book is housed in a fleece-lined buckram clamshell box with the title and date in gold gilt on the spine.

About Kelliegram Bindings: The beautifully inlaid and colorful "Kelliegram” bindings were one of many innovations of the English commercial binding firm of Kelly & Sons. The Kelly family had one of the longest connections in the history of the binding trade in London, having been founded in 1770 by John Kellie, as the name was then spelled. The binding firm was carried on by successive members of the family into the 1930s. The development [during the 1880s] that came to be known as Kelliegram was one of the bindery's most notable, and the popularity continues today as demonstrated by the prices Kelliegram bindings command at auction and in the rare book trade" (Dooley, Kelliegram Bindings).

Book Details:  This is the first edition, later printing (twenty-fourth thousand) of Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There published in 1872 (the same year as the first printing) by Macmillan and Company that features fifty wood engraved illustrations by John Tenniel.

Measures approximately 7.25” x4.75” with 224 pages.

 Condition Report: The binding and clamshell box are in FINE condition. Internally, the book is very clean with no foxing. The front flyleaf contains an embossed ex-libris stamp of Dana C. Bradford and there is a short fore-edge tear to rear free endleaf.

Photographs of the binding, clamshell box, and some stock illustrations from the book appear in the photo section of this listing.