London: William Pickering, 1831. The Aldine Edition. Small octavo (6 1/2 x 4 inches; 166 x 101 mm.). [i]-clxxxii [Life and Anecdotes of Goldsmith], [1]-156 pp, with engraved portrait frontispiece. Bound c. 1930 by Sangorski and Sutcliffe for Chas. J. Sawyer Ltd., stamp-signed in gilt on front turn-in, with the S&S monogram stamped in gilt on rear doublure. Full dark red crushed levant morocco over beveled boards with elaborate gilt-rolled borders and gilt-tooled frame. Front cover with Oliver Goldsmith's initials within a decorative thistle tool frame. Rear cover with central gilt wreath. Spine with five raised bands elaborately decorated and lettered in gilt in compartments. Gilt-ruled board edges, broad, gilt-rolled dentelles, green silk end-leaves, top edge gilt. Gilt-tooled green calf doublures with decorative gilt corner-pieces. Front doublure with a fine gilt-framed oval portrait miniature watercolor under glass of Oliver Goldsmith. Front joint expertly and almost invisibly repaired. A Near Fine example of an S&S Cosway-Style binding.

The Anglo-Irish author Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774), is probably best known for his popular novel Vicar of Wakefield (1766). Here however readers encounter a different side to his craft. Part of The Aldine Poet Series—a twenty-year long and fifty-three volume project of new editions of classic British poets from Chaucer through to the nineteenth century—this book highlights Goldsmith’s poetry. Apart from poetry and novels, Goldsmith wrote plays and legend has it, the children's story The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. Kept busy by writing quickly and voluminously for Grub Street, the center of London’s disreputable part of the literary world, Goldsmith nevertheless also found time to hone novels such as The Vicar of Wakefield, poems such as The Deserted Village, and plays such as She Stoops to Conquer. Contemporaries celebrated Goldsmith’s ability to craft deceptively complex characters, most notably in the case of Charles Primrose, the vicar from The Vicar of Wakefield. Goldsmith counted Samuel Johnson among his closest friends, and Johnson wrote the epitaph that appears on Goldsmith’s memorial in Westminster Abbey’s famous Poets’ Corner: “To the memory of Oliver Goldsmith, poet, philosopher and historian, by whom scarcely any style of writing was left untouched and no one touched unadorned, whether to move to laughter or tears; a powerful, yet lenient master of the affections, in genius sublime, vivid, and versatile, in expression, noble, brilliant, and delicate, is cherished in this monument by the love of his companions, the fidelity of his friends, and the admiration of his readers.”

The story of the Sangorski & Sutcliffe Bindery reads like something out of a novel—when two of Douglas Cockrell’s talented apprentices, Frances Sangorski and George Sutcliffe, were laid off during an economic downturn they began working out of an attic. Eventually their bindery would be famous for its intricate multicolored leather inlays and elaborate gold and jeweled bindings. Although named after the English miniaturist Richard Cosway (1742-1821), the desirable “Cosway Binding” with its jewel-like portrait miniature set into a fine binding was first developed at the turn of the century by J.H. Stonehouse, director of London’s Henry Sotheran Booksellers. Their miniatures were painstakingly crafted by the talented painter Miss C. B. Currie (1849-1940). As the style grew in popularity, other publishing houses quickly began to reproduce this technique—each developing their own desirable take on the aesthetic—referred to as “Cosway style.” Near Fine (Item #6239)