Cover of Japan vellum copy (Japan vellum) and Dutch paper copy (paper over boards with leather spine).
Sonnets From the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, printed
1899
# 4 of 15 copies printed on Japan Vellum
#106 of 490 copies on Dutch Hand-made paper
Ransom #3
Cover of Japan vellum copy (Japan vellum) and Dutch paper copy (paper over
boards with leather spine).
Limitation statements from Japan vellum and Dutch paper copies.
Title page (from Japan Vellum copy).
The pages were printed from plates made from Ralph Fletcher Seymour's original
lettering and drawings.
Text page (from Japan Vellum copy).
Final text pages (from Japan vellum copy).
Text pages (from Dutch paper copy).
Text pages (from Dutch paper copy).
In his autobiography Some Went This Way, Ralph Fletcher Seymour wrote the following about this book:
Dr. Gunsaulus suggested a sequence of immortal love sonnets for my third book and offered to write an introduction. He coached me on how to sell the books, told me how to produce an announcement of its publication and how to enlarge on its unique quality of hand lettered pages. It took months of nights to letter the Sonnets From the Portugese [sic] and his ample introduction but it was finally completed, plates made, the printing and binding done. The production costs greatly exceeded my resources. I could see no way of meeting them; I thought I was ruined. Dr. Gunsaulus had asked for a few hundred of the announcements at the time they were printed. I had forgotten to enquire what he wanted them for. Walking home one wintry night, thinking of the troubles common to printers and publishers, but new to me, I noticed, upon opening the front door to my lodgings, a great pile of envelopes which covered the marble top of the old fashioned hat rack in the hall and overflowed in a sort of paper snow storm around its base. They all bore my name. Dr. Gunsaulus had enclosed his personal card with the announcements for which he had asked and had mailed them to his friends. He was a greatly loved man; when he asked these friends to support any of the many affairs with which he identified himself they usually did so. They had responded in this instance by almost buying out the edition. Hundreds of dollars were enclosed with orders for the book in that snow storm of envelopes. By this almost magical transaction I became a solvent book-man.