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A FINE BERNARD MIDDLETON BINDING. First edition. London: Printed for the author, by C. Stower; Published by Sherwood, Neely and Jones; J. Hatchard and J. Richardson; 1811[-12]. Six parts in one volume. Pot folio (11 7/8" x 9 1/4", 303mm x 237mm). [Full collation available.] With a hand-colored aquatint frontispiece, hand-colored engraved headpiece to the dedication and 17 hand-colored engraved plates. Bound in modern red straight-grained morocco (by Bernard Middleton in August 2003, signed by him in pencil on the lower edge of the recto of the final end-paper). On the boards, an elaborate gilt and black border with leaves and scrollwork. On the spine, five pairs of raised bands with a gilt roll. Between each pair, a thick gilt fillet. In the panels, a gilt floral ornament. Title gilt to black morocco in the second panel. Gilt florals to the head and tail. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. Gilt inside dentelle. Marbled end-papers. All edges of the text-block gilt. General toning and occasional foxing to the text-block. Some plates more heavily foxed, and offsetting. Small marginal closed tears on the title-page and plate 17. Rich hand-coloring and good margins, with several preserved lower deckles. William Jowett Titford (1784-1823) was born in Jamaica and traversed the Atlantic several times, traveling through the northeastern states and collecting specimens all the while. For a time, he enrolled at Columbia to study botany with David Hosack, who established the first public botanical garden in the United States. The Sketches -- clearly preparatory for a magnum opus -- was his only published work. Issued in six parts between 1811 and 1812 (title-pages exist with 1812 imprints; the present item states 1811), the text and drawings for the plates are entirely Titford's. It is clear that his talent, extinguished before he reached 40 (en route to New York; he was buried at sea), was substantial and would only have grown. Numbered among the subscribers are the Prince Regent and the King of France (Louis XVIII), so his prospects were certainly strong. The book qua printed object is something of a puzzle. Ian MacPhail's classic 1964 article on the Sketches notes that the cataloguer "is likely to throw up his hands in despair," and that "of the eight copies of the work that I have seen, the contents of no two are bound in the same way" (117). Following along his collation, it does not seem that anything in particular is lacking from the present copy, though it is frankly hard to tell. That said, the complexity of the makeup of the book reflects its part-issue but also the collaboration of several printers. The superb binding was carried out by Bernard Middleton -- The Great Man, for whom the commonest epithets are "legendary" and "incomparable" -- who died in 2019. He was the son of a binder who worked at the British Museum and Sangorski, and himself managed Zaehnsdorf's before beginning his own workshop, where he not only bound but repaired. Indeed, he wrote the standard works on both subjects: A History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique (1963) and The Restoration of Leather Bindings (1972). His death in 2019 was a great loss for the whole tribe of bibliomanes, and his work is now more precious than ever. Nissen BBI 1968, Plesch p. 436, Sitwell Great Flower Books p. 144, Stafleu-Cowan 14.606. MacPhail, Ian. "Titford's â â Hortus botanicus americanus⠺⠺." Huntia 1 (1964) 117-135.
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