[Fore-Edge Paintings] The Poetical Works of James Thomson, Comprising All His Pastoral, Dramatic, Lyrical, and Didactic Poems, and a Few of His Juvenile Productions. With a Life of the Author by the Rev. Patrick Murdoch, D.D., F.R.S. and Notes by Nichols

London: William Tegg and Co, 1856. Third Edition. Full Morocco. George Grantbach, engraver. Engravings of mostly of works by John Gilbert, but frontis portrait was painted by Joseph Paton. Unusual split arrangement of fore-edge paintings, with each occupying half of the fore-edge's vertical length. One of the paintings, occupying the first half of the book, reveals itself when you fan those leaves to the left -- towards the front board; the other, taking up the latter leaves, emerges when fanning to the right, or the rear board. But one thing special about this volume's fore-edge paintings is that one needn't fan the pages oneself really, because when one opens the volume in its center, the two fore-edge paintings come out clearly at the same time! And while we don't recommend that one rest an antiquarian book fully open, in the case of this binding we believe it is safe. Plus the paintings in fact are sufficiently apparent without the book laying completely flat. 12mo. 16.5 by 11 cm. lxxii, 681 pp. With seven steel engraved plates, including frontis and half-title, and a few illustrations placed in the text. The front fore-edge painting is of a coach that gets mired in the snow, as a sole horseman gallops by in the background. The rear fore-edge painting is of omnibuses hitched together, with no horse(s) attached, as would be needed to pull the vehicular ancestor of trolleys. Both paintings are populated with people, and setting them apart from almost all fore-edge paintings is that they are genre scenes, with something going on, fitting into and/or sparking a narrative. They also easily relate to Thomson's most famous poem, "The Seasons", and thus are distinguishable from the typical fore-edge painting in which the painter chooses a volume more or less randomly to use as his canvas. Besides the fore-edge paintings, the volume has a lovely decorative binding to recommend it with the boards' gilt decoration elaborate gilt design evoking Pompeian ornament, and similar to countless palatial wall and door panels created in the neo-Classical vein of the late 18th Century. The spine has a typical five raised band format, but given the dimensions of the book, the narrower compartments means the gilt decoration within have an unusual horizontality to them. The binding does show wear, with rubbing along the joints, on the raised bands, along the edges. It remains very handsome nonetheless, and the binding is also tight. Internally, there is light age toning to the leaves. Other than some foxing of the plates, which are of a different, thicker paper stock than the rest, with the frontis plate suffering the deepest amount of foxing, the leaves are generally clean. There is normal offsetting of the engravings. (Inventory #: 20240)