Lot 243
![[Woman binder]](https://media.app.artisio.co/media/104cbde6-0d38-43cb-9e0f-bb721ef57bcf/inventory/73e1c4a2-4ee6-4716-ba54-1159a07bc56f/b973a87b-2b54-4b42-b7fd-6dcbb99fffb6/0001_TVrKht_original.jpg)
[Woman binder]
Letters to M. G. & H. G. by John Ruskin
Auction: Other Properties | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 63 to 255
Description
With Preface by the Right Hon. G. Wyndham. [Edinburgh:] privately printed, 1903. First edition, inscribed ‘with best wishes from Arthur Quiller-Couch’ on the front free endpaper, 8vo (19 x 12.9cm), xxii 136 pp., 6 halftone or photogravure plates, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, contemporary Arts and Crafts binding of reddish-brown crushed morocco attributed to Ethel Taunton (rear turn-in gilt-stamped with dated monogram ‘19 E. T. 04'), repeating motif of four green morocco clover onlays around a central four-pointed gilt star to spine and within gilt knotwork frame to covers, broad turn-ins decorated with gilt fillets and onlaid green morocco dots
Provenance
From the library of Sir Steven Runciman (1903-2000), historian and author of A History of the Crusades (1951-4), though not marked as such.
Footnote
In Women Bookbinders 1880-1920 Marianne Tidcombe illustrates an example of Ethel Taunton's work and provides a brief account of her binding activities: ‘Ethel Taunton was another pupil who spent six months with Douglas Cockerell in Gilbert Street. She went home to Tadworth in Surrey and worked there for a year and a half, binding for friends and booksellers, and teaching one pupil, but then returned to London to set up a workshop in Marloes Road, Kensington. At first she worked alone, and then for a while with Miss G. Wallbrand Evans, who may have been trained at the Guild of Women Binders workshop’ (p. 169).