
CARPETS
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Stamped in the Titular Metals
(A Rug's story . . . ). Ellwanger, George H. In gold and silver. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1892. 12mo (17.1 cm, 6.73"). Frontis., illum. t.-p., viii, 156, [2 (adv.)] pp.; 8 plts., illus.
$55.00
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First edition of these four stories: one example of prime 19th-century Orientalist exoticism in which
a traveler tries to track down a famously beautiful rug, two fishing tales, and an account of a fox's triumph over his would-be hunters. The stories are
illustrated with a frontispiece, eight additional plates, and a number of in-text vignettes by A.B. Wenzell, W.C. Greenough, and W. Hamilton Gibson, as well as a title-page printed in accordance with the title.
Binding: Publisher's brick-colored cloth, front cover with cream medallion stamped in gilt and silver, in silver- and gold-stamped frame with corner fleurons, spine and back cover repeating the corner fleuron motifs. Top edges gilt. Silk bookmark detached but laid in.
Binding as above; spine foot chipped, corners rubbed, otherwise fresh and bright inside and out.
In fact a lovely little volume, with both the gold and the silver, i.e., aluminum, shine extraordinarily bright and clear. (41288)

“No Plan, No Pattern Can We Trace” — Illustrated
(The Persuasive Power of Metaphor?)
[More, Hannah]. Turn the carpet; or, the two weavers: A new song, in a dialogue between Dick and John. London: Sold by J. Marshall, R. White, & S. Hazard, [1796]. 12mo (17.7 cm, 6.97"). [8] pp.; illus.
$200.00
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From the “Cheap Repository” series: Early, uncommon printing of this cheerful religious consolation in iambic tetrameter, signed “Z” (i.e., Hannah More). When one weaver grumbles about his hardships, the other turns the seemingly disordered threads of the unfinished carpet in their workshop into a metaphor for man's inability to comprehend the workings of the divine plan.
The ballad is here
illustrated with two handsome woodcuts: the title-page features a large vignette of Dick and John at their loom, and the final text page displays the patterned carpet itself.
Provenance: From the chapbook collection of American collector Albert A. Howard, sans indicia.
ESTC T052020. Disbound from a nonce volume, with early inked numeral in upper outer corner of title-page. Title-page foot with faint shadow of pencilled annotation; pages with very minor foxing. (41145)
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