Books and Manuscripts

[Edwards of Halifax] (Burke, Edmund)
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1782. The Ninth Edition. 8vo. ix, (vii), 342 pp. With a fine fore-edge painting view of Mount Etna erupting. Full contemporary vellum, stamped in gilt with blue wash border and spine compartments, front board with a graphite drawing of the Apollo Belvedere, rear board with a graphite drawing of the Three Graces, bottom corner of front board worn, blue wash on spine and boards unevenly faded; all edges gilt; pink endpapers, by Edwards of Halifax; green morocco book-plate of Estelle Doheny on front paste-down, armorial book-plate of David Mac Watt below same; ownership signature of Patrick Dudgeon at head of title-page; scattered foxing to text. 

A fine binding by the Edwards of Halifax bindery. Edwards of Halifax was established by a distinguished English family of bookbinders and booksellers, of whom William Halifax (1723-1808) and his son James (1756-1816) were the most famous. William Halifax was known for his revival of fore-edge painting, his use of Etruscan calf, and the development of the process of rendering vellum transparent. In 1785 the bindery was awarded one of the earliest patents in the field of bookbinding (No. 1462) for “Embellishing Books bound in Vellum, by making Drawings on the Vellum which are not liable to be Defaced but by Destroying the Vellum itself.”