Alfred TENNYSON. Lot n° 93

Maud, and other Poems. London, Edward Moxon, 1855. In-12: brown morocco, spine ribbed and decorated with small mosaic red morocco lozenges, boards entirely covered with gilt floral decoration with bright red mosaic morocco lozenges on the upper board, rectangular green mosaic morocco central section covered with the same, lining framed in brown morocco with two gilt fillets and mosaic red morocco lozenges in the corners, edges gilt on witnesses (D[ouglas] C[ockerell], 1899). First edition. Rejected by his contemporaries as morbid, Maud was the favourite poem of Alfred Tennyson (1809- 1892). According to his grandson, Charles Tennyson, "He had never written with more fire or originality, or given his genius freer rein, and he had high hopes of his reception. Unfortunately, these were doomed to bitter disappointment. The public were frankly bewildered, and indeed nothing could be imagined more different from the poem which had won him his high position with the English people, In Memoriam." (Simone Lavabre, Une lecture de Maud in Caliban, nº 7, 1970, pp. 25-34.) Superb decorated morocco binding made in 1899 by Douglas Cockerell. Trained at the Doves Bindery with T.J. Cobden-Sanderson from 1893 to 1897, Douglas Cockerell (1870-1945) opened his own workshop at the end of his apprenticeship. This early binding has a remarkable gilt decoration in the Arts & Crafts style. From the library of Dorothy Gertrude Quick (1896-1962), with bookplate, an American writer and poet whose vocation was encouraged by her friendship with Mark Twain at the end of the latter's life. She used this friendship as material for a memoir entitled Enchantment, a little girl's friendship with Mark Twain (1961). The spine is slightly faded.