Folio. Illustrations after Kenyon Cox in proof on india paper. (Marginal toning, very light spotting.) Original gilt-decorated vellum, upper cover with a Pre-Raphaelite design by Cox, top edge gilt (upper cover a bit bowed). Provenance: Emily Talbot Walker (bookplate, clipped signature).

FIRST EDITION, LIMITED ISSUE, ONE OF 35 COPIES.

The Blessed Damozel was first published in the Pre-Raphaelite magazine The Germ in 1850 and is today widely considered the best-known and most beloved of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poems. Partly inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," the poem depicts a woman in the afterlife watching her lover and yearning for their reunion. Rossetti was known for pairing paintings and poetry, nearly always with the painting completed first; The Blessed Damozel did not receive an accompanying painting until 1871 and is the only example in which the poem predates the artwork.