Arthur Hughes’s cover for Thomas Woolner’s ‘My Beautiful Lady’ (original) (raw)

Cloth binding for Woolner’s ‘My Beautiful Lady’

Arthur Hughes

1866

Cloth binding gilt

6¾ x 4 ½ inches

This is delicate binding, probably by Hughes, is unusually simple and direct for a book of the 1860s, when cover design was characterized by elaborate patterns in gilt. Hughes’s cover is austere, prefiguring the chaste descriptions of the Beloved; it also links to the pictorial title-page, with the Lady savouring the aroma of a flower (possibly a lily).

• Thomas Woolner

Scan and text by Simon Cooke [Click on image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]

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