1877 SPENSER Works WINCHESTER Prize Binding Saye & Sele Arms Full Morocco For Sale

SPENSER, Edmund. The Works of Edmund Spenser, with a Selection of Notes from Various Commentators; and a Glossarial Index: To Which Is Prefixed, Some Account of the Life of Spenser, by the Rev. Henry John Todd, M.A.

London: George Routledge and Sons; New York: 416 Broome Street, 1877.

New Edition.

Large octavo, approximately 9½ × 6½ inches.
lx, 562 pp.

Engraved portrait frontispiece and engraved vignette title.

A striking Victorian edition of Spenser in an unusually handsome Winchester College prize binding, decorated with the gilt arms of Baron Saye and Sele, the arms of Winchester College, and the crowned S & S monogram associated with the Saye and Sele prize tradition.

The volume retains its original 1879 Winchester presentation label.

Bound in full dark-brown grained morocco, elaborately finished in gilt.

The front board bears the gilt arms of the Barons Saye and Sele, surmounted by a baronial coronet and accompanied by the family motto:

FORTEM POSCE ANIMUM

The arms are those of the Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes family: quarterly Fiennes and Twisleton.

The rear board bears the arms of Winchester College, beneath a bishop\'s mitre, with the famous Winchester motto:

MANNERS MAKYTH MAN

The spine is divided by five raised bands into richly gilt floral compartments and incorporates the characteristic crowned:

S & S

device associated with the Saye and Sele prize books.

The Bibliographical Society records both the Saye and Sele armorial stamp and this crowned S & S monogram among the documented binding tools of Frederick Benjamin Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 16th Baron Saye and Sele.

Features include:

• Full dark-brown morocco leather
• Saye and Sele gilt arms to front board
• Winchester College arms to rear board
• Crowned S & S device to spine
• Five raised bands
• Elaborately gilt floral spine compartments
• Red morocco spine label lettered SPENSER\'S WORKS
• Multiple gilt rules to both boards
• Gilt Greek-key decoration to board edges
• Broad gilt floral turn-ins
• Richly colored marbled endpapers
• All edges gilt

The binder is not identified.

The front pastedown retains a printed Latin Winchester College presentation label dated:

16 December 1879

recording the award of the volume to a Commoner in the junior division of the Sixth Form for diligence in study and exemplary conduct.

The Saye and Sele prize tradition at Winchester is well documented. Nineteenth-century accounts record books being awarded under the patronage of Lord Saye and Sele to pupils achieving the highest aggregate marks during the half-year.

Since Frederick Benjamin Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 16th Baron Saye and Sele, died in 1877, this 1879 volume represents a continuation of the established Saye and Sele Winchester prize tradition, rather than a personal presentation by him.

This substantial one-volume edition contains Spenser\'s major writings, including:

The Faerie Queene
The Shepheardes Clouts Come Home Againe
Mother Hubberds Tale
The Ruines of Rome
Astrophel

and other poetry and prose.

With Henry John Todd\'s biographical account, extensive notes, and glossarial index.

Winchester College prize, December 16, 1879.

Later in the:

Lowe Memorial Library, University College, Durham

with institutional and withdrawal markings.

The library stamps include markings across the Winchester prize label. Although cosmetically intrusive, they document the volume\'s later institutional provenance.

Good to Very Good overall.

The full morocco binding remains attractive and structurally intact, with the gilt armorial devices and spine decoration particularly well preserved.

There is rubbing and wear to the joints, raised bands, spine ends, board edges and corners, together with scattered surface scuffs and abrasions.

Both inner hinges are partially split, though the boards remain attached.

The marbled endpapers and broad gilt turn-ins remain attractive.

Institutional stamps and withdrawal markings from the Lowe Memorial Library are present, including stamps affecting the Winchester prize label.

Internally generally clean, with light age toning and occasional minor spotting or handling marks.

All edges gilt.

Please examine the photographs carefully for the most complete representation of condition.

A substantial and visually impressive Victorian Spenser in a documented Winchester College prize binding, combining the gilt arms of Baron Saye and Sele with those of Winchester College and retaining its dated 1879 prize label.