Aucassin & Nicolete.

Agenda 8vo (17,5 x 9 cm).

Superb Art Nouveau binding by Alfred de Sauty of The Hampstead Bindery (London), signed deS in back cover: chestnut brown crushed morocco, covers with gilt-ruled border frame and 18 gilt-tooled flowers reaching out to the centre creating an oval, each flower with elegant gilt stem & leaves and each flower itself inlaid with red morocco, gilt-titled spine with gilt leaves at top and bottom, gilt-ruled sides, top edge gilt, marbled doublures within gilt-ruled morocco frame and 12 similar gilt-tooled and mosaic flowers in the corners, marbled endpapers (a few tiny scratches, corners sl. bumped & rubbed, spine sl. discol., head, tail and joints sl. rubbed, front joint sl. splitting at top and bottom).

Second edition (1st 1887) of the English translation by A. Lang of this anonymous 13th-c. chantefable. Ed. limited to 925 copies. 1/100 printed on Japan vellum (n. 80). Ill. with front. and 3 headpieces by Jacomb-Hood, reproduced from the 1st ed. The Hampstead Bindery was founded in 1898 by Frank Karslake, who would also found the Guild of Women Binders. "Alfred de Sauty (1870-1949) was a bookbinder who produced tooled bindings of exceptional delicacy. De Sauty was active in London from approximately 1898 to 1923 and in Chicago from 1923 to 1935" (Bound in Intrigue, Harvard Botany Libraries Online Exhibit).