[DONNE, John], [KEYNES, Geoffrey, comp.]
X Sermons
Preached by That Late Learned and Rev. Divine John Donne
Doctor in Divinity Once Dean of the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul’s
London: The Nonesuch Press, 1923

First edition thus. Elephant octavo (overall 30 x 20.5 cm, 11-3/4 x 8-1/8 in.). No. 557 of 725 numbered copies, printed in red and black Garamond types on Dutch mould-made laid paper at the Kynoch Press, Birmingham. Quarter buff linen with black-lettered beige paper title piece over brown Ingres paper covers and endpapers, top edges rough trimmed, others uncut. Collates [2 ll.], 1 l. (half-title), 1 l. (title recto, colophon verso), 1 l. (contents), pp. 1-162, [2 ll.]. Five occasions of discrete red ink marginal checks in a fine point, and five others with accompanying discrete red ink brackets around text passages, in the first two sermons (hardly a defect; the markings simulate the printing and emulate contemporary marginalia), else fine, with the extra title piece laid in. This choice of ten sermons, one printed contemporaneously for Donne and the others from posthumous collections by his son, concludes with the one subsequently titled “Death’s Duell,” preached before the King February 25, 1631, which became “the Doctors owne funerall sermon.” With the engraved bookplate of Kenneth Garth Huston (1926-1987), discerning collector of Geoffrey Keynes material; acquired from Maggs Bros., London in 1954. Dreyfus 9.

Price: $100
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