Doves Press, Bible: English, 1903 1905

Presented by Sammy Jay of Peter Harrington Rare Books. First edition thus, one of 500 sets. It was the masterpiece of the Doves Press, famous for its austerely dramatic incipit with Johnston s single elongated initial I. It epitomises the understated elegance and restrained style of the Doves Press, established in 1900 by T. J. CobdenSanderson, who left his career as a barrister to open the Doves Bindery in 1884. He became interested in all aspects of book design, writing in 1892 that I must, before I die, create the type for today of The Book Beautiful, and actualize it paper, ink, writing, printing, ornament and binding. I will learn to write, to print and to decorate. Though an admirer of William Morris, he felt that the Gothic Kelmscott designs, with thickly foliated borders, ornamental bindings, and woodcut illustrations, were excessive. Instead, he worked with the printer Emery Walker to develop a refined type based on those of 15thcentury Italian masters Nicholas Jenson and Jacobus Rubeus. The