A Hymn in Holborn
MILTON, John.
Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity. [Holborn,] W. Herbert Broome and James J. Guthrie at the Old Bourne Press, [1904].
Oblong 8vo, pp. [2, blank], [38]; printed in blue and green inks with woodcut initials and ornaments throughout; some very light offsetting in places; in the original cloth-backed boards printed in red and blue, printed patterned endpapers, edges uncut; some spotting and staining to boards, else a very good copy.
First Old Bourne edition, numbered 42 of 200 copies and signed by James Guthrie, of Milton’s On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.
A predecessor to Guthrie’s longer-lived Pear Tree Press, the Old Bourne Press was established at Holborn in 1902 ‘at the sign of the Viole d’Amour’, which here appears also as a watermark. The press was operated largely by Washington Herbert Broome, formerly of the Kelmscott Press, working to designs by Guthrie with woodcuts in his characteristically clear style. The Press’s type, Myrtle, shares its name with Broome’s daughter, the Egyptologist and artist Myrtle Florence Broome.
Library Hub finds only four copies in the UK (BL, NLS, Manchester Public Library, V&A).