THE EVERGREEN. A Northern Seasonal. The Book of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.

GEDDES, Patrick (ed.):

Edité par Edinburgh: Patrick Geddes and Colleagues & London: T. Fisher Unwin., 1895

A propos de cet article

First edition. Four volumes. Octavo (23.5 x 18cm). Publisher's original deluxe embossed colour leather bindings with extensive pictorial decoration to the boards in the Celtic Arts and Crafts style, with colour titles to the upper board and spine. Top edge gilt, the others untrimmed. Title page vignette to each volume, the latter three printed in red and black. Each volume profusely illustrated throughout in black and white, including numerous full-page plates, head- and tail-pieces, and pictorial capital initials. Publisher's series advertisement slip bound-in before the half-title page in the Spring volume. Contemporary engraved bookplate for John Alfred Codrington to the front pastedown of each volume. 138, [6]; 147, [5]; 141, [1]; 156, [2]pp. A very good set, the bindings firm with three old small worm-holes to the upper joint of the Summer volume, one tiny hole each to the upper joint of the Spring and Winter volumes, a little bowing to the boards of the Summer volume, and a touch of minor wear to the extremities. The contents with a few minor spots of old worming to the paper covering the hinges at the front and rear of the Spring volume, to the paper covering the rear hinge of the Summer and Winter volumes, and with toning to the endpapers, are otherwise in very good order. An uncommonly nice set. An attractive complete run of this important Celtic Revival periodical, forming an experimental synthesis of art, literature and science, in the publisher's deluxe embossed leather binding. Under the editorship of the biologist, sociologist, and pioneering town planner Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932), 'The Evergreen' was established "as a forum for contemporary Celtic literature and illustration". In addition to Geddes himself, it contributors included Joseph Noel Paton, John Arthur Thomson, Rosa Mulholland, Margaret Armour, William Macdonald, Hugo Laubach, William Sharp (using the pseudonym Fiona Macleod), William Gordon Burn Murdoch, Riccardo Stephens, Jane Hay, Nora Hopper, Elisee Reclus, and numerous others, with extensive illustrations provided by leading contemporary Scottish artists including John Duncan, Robert Burns, Edward Atkinson Hornel, Charles Hodge Mackie, James Cadenhead, Helen Hay, Alice Gray, Robert Brough, Nellie Baxter, James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, and others. Often compared by contemporaries to 'The Yellow Book' (1894-97), 'The Evergreen' has subsequently been perceived as more part of the Arts and Crafts Movement tradition of periodicals, inaugurated with 'The Century Guild Hobby Horse' (1884-1894). It was, however, unlike both of these publications, "deeply ideological in conception and expression. For Geddes, who established the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland with the founding of the Edinburgh Social Union in 1884, decorative art was fundamentally political in its connections to historical tradition, social housing, and building a better collective future". (Hart, Imogen. "The Arts and Crafts Movement: The Century Guild Hobby Horse (1884-94, The Evergreen (1895-7), and The Acorn (1905-6)". "In addition to his interests that ranged from city planning to Irish art, Geddes was [also] passionate about ecology and he saw The Evergreen as a place to draw attention to the natural beauty of the earth in order to increase awareness and concern for ecological preservation. The Evergreen was consistent in its portrayal of nature as sublime, mysterious, and beautiful. The publication promoted the natural landscape as intrinsic to the country's artistic heritage and of necessary importance to the blossoming new literature and visual art of the Celtic Revival and Renaissance". (Cevasco, G.A. "Evergreen, The." The 1890s: An Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art, and Culture). "As "A Northern Seasonal," each volume was dedicated to a single season of the year. These did not follow the Gregorian calendar sequence, however, but rather the "natural time" of the Celts, who determined the seasons by equinoxes and.

N° de réf. du vendeur 1642

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: THE EVERGREEN. A Northern Seasonal. The Book of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
• Éditeur: Edinburgh: Patrick Geddes and Colleagues & London: T. Fisher Unwin.
• Date de parution: 1895
• Reliure: Couverture rigide
• Édition: Edition originale