A SPECIMEN PAPER BOOK OF PATTERN PAPERS DESIGNED FOR AND IN USE AT THE CURWEN PRESS

First edition. Limited edition. Quarto. Publisher's original white cloth printed in black with a wood engraving design by Paul Nash, title in black to the spine. Title page vignette, head-piece and decorated initial letter by Edward Bawden, coloured in green and pink. With 31 sheets of pattern papers printed at The Curwen Press, 10 of which are produced from wood engravings. Each sheet is folded twice and uncut to the folded edge, as issued. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with bumping to the spine tips and corners and rubbing to the black printed design at the edges. The contents, with a little offsetting to the endpapers and the occasional finger mark to the margins of the introduction, are otherwise fine, bright and fresh throughout.

Issued in an edition of 145 copies for sale in the UK, from which this example is numbered 49. There was also an edition of 75 copies issued by Random House for sale in America. With an eight page introduction by Paul Nash in which the relates the history of patterned papers. A beautiful volume.