Maud. A Monodrama

London/Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1893. Limited First Edition. hardcover. Good+. 8 5/16" × 5 11/16" × 1/2". Maud. A Monodrama; by Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. London/Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press. Printed by William Morris, and published by Macmillan & Co., Bedford Street, Strand. 1893. Limited First Edition. First State. 8vo: 8 5/16" x 5 11/16" x 1/2" (21.1 x 14.4 x 1.3 cm). Bound in custom hardcover full leather with tooled design. One of 500 [at two guineas] paper copies (plus 5 [not for sale] on vellum). Printed on fine, hand-made, Batchelor (with the second version of the Primrose watermark) paper. Uncut. Colophon and the smaller, rectangular printer's device designed by Morris (no. 1). All edges gilt. [iv], 69, [70, imprint] pp. Printed in black and red throughout with the Golden type designed by Morris for his press, with stanza numbers in red. Woodcut title within a floral border, facing page with full woodcut floral page-border (borders 10a and 10). Numerous other floral edge borders at stanza heads. Three 12-line woodcut initial and numerous 6-line initials all designed by Morris, engraved by William Harcourt Hooper.Maud was a great money-spinner for Morris, as it was specially commissioned by Macmillan & Co., who bought all 500 copies. A tragic dramatic poem. The narrator being the unnamed lover of Maud. He kills her brother in a duel and must flee to France where he later learns that his love, Maud, has died, probably of a broken heart. The distressed poet loses his sanity and imagines he is dead. In the last part, his sanity is restored and he leaves to fight in the Crimean War.First of the Kelmscott octavo books with a woodcut title. "[F]inished on the 11th day of August, 1893." [Peterson A17. Sparling 17. Tomkinson 112.] First state with uncorrected printer's errors in the text as follows: p. 16, last line, "edge" for "head"; p. 19, line 4 "myself to myself" for "myself from myself"; p. 26, line 18, "where" for "were"; p. 69, line 1 "the" omitted before "war". These errors were reset during printing, resulting, in effect, in two states of the book. Elaborately bound by Léon Gruel (stamp-signed) in contemporary full brown leather with tooled title and leaf design to cover, bearing the initials BG. Five raised bands. Originally published in a limp vellum binding with yapped edges, silk ties and gilt spine, by J. and J. Leighton of London. "The Parisian bookbinding workshop later known as Gruel & Engelmann was founded in 1811 by Isidore Desforges. Desforges took his son-in-law Paul Gruel into partnership in 1825. After Gruel's death in 1846, his widow Catherine, successfully continued the business. ... In 1850, she married Godefroy Engelmann, the famous French printer who introduced lithography to France and invented the chromolithography process. After he joined the business, the house changed its name to Gruel-Engelmann. After Engelmann's death, Catherine was joined by her sons Léon Gruel (overseeing the binding department) and Edmond Engelmann (directing the artistic aspects of printing). The fame and artistic excellence of the firm continued to grow. Léon Gruel, expert binder and collector, said, 'Modern book binding has discovered nothing to equal the old designs, and at best we can only copy' (The Bookman, 1900:11). He could produce binding in any style, but he loved to replicate the old French masters' designs. His frequently-exhibited works brought him the highest awards." [Treasures from the (University of Pittsburgh) Rare Book Room: Judged by the Cover, by Gosia Fort. Posted in the April 2016 Issue]Spine badly chipped and now lacking leather covering of three of the raised bands. Chock stamp to the first blank, previous owner's name inked to second, else internally clean. Condition overall: Good+.