The Booke of the Duchesse

Lexington, KY: Anvil Press, 1954. Hardcover. Very Good. Hardcover. Number 27 of 225 copies. A handsome book from Victor Hammer's Anvil Press. Victor Karl Hammer (1882 – 1967) was an Austrian-born American painter, sculptor, printer, and typographer. Hammer produced his first type design, Hammer Uncial, in 1921. In 1922, he moved to Florence, Italy, where he set up a printing press. In 1929, he moved his printing operation into the Villa Santuccio in Florence and named it the Stamperia del Santuccio. From 1936 to 1939, Hammer lived in Vienna, where he served as professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. In 1939, he fled the Nazis and immigrated with his first wife to the United States, leaving behind all his cutting and casting tools and most of his fonts. He taught at Wells College in Aurora, New York until 1948. Here, he produced American Uncial – the best known of his five typefaces. In 1948, Hammer settled in Lexington, Kentucky and was artist-in-residence at Transylvania University, a post he held until retirement in 1953.

The text of this edition is one of the Chaucer Society, First Series/xxio from the Fairfax MS 16 at the Bodleian Library. Victor Hammer laid the book out and gave it final form together with Jacob Hammer who set the type and did the presswork. Bound in textured cream cloth with paper title label to spine. Light splattering on both covers. Offsetting to pastedowns. Printed in black and red. Very good condition save for the spotting on the covers. 8vo. Unpaginated. PRI/092424. (Inventory #: 37482)