The Works of Oscar Wilde. [Double Fore-Edge Painting].

First Naschen edition of Oscar Wilde’s collected works, decorated with a concealed double fore-edge painting. Octavo, bound in twentieth-century light brown morocco with gilt titles and five raised bands to the spine, all edges gilt concealing a double fore-edge painting, one scene depicting Dorian Gray with his portrait and an inset cameo of Wilde, the other the Selfish Giant chasing a child from his garden, stamp-signed by Bumpus. Illustrated by Donia Nachshen. The term ‘fore-edge painting’ can refer to any painted decoration on the fore-edges of the leaves of a book, such as was not uncommon in the 15th and early 16th centuries, particularly in Italy. The term is most commonly used, however, for an English technique quite widely practiced in the second half of the 17th century in London and Edinburgh, and popularized in the 18th century by John Brindley and, in particular, Edwards of Halifax, whereby the fore-edge of the book, very slightly fanned out and then held fast, is decorated with painted views, or conversation pieces. The edges are then squared up and gilded in the ordinary way, so that the painting remains concealed while the book is closed: fan out the edges and it reappears. The technique was practiced by a few other English binders in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and a certain number of undoubted examples survive. In very good condition with sunning to the spine and rubbing to the extremities. Rare with an attractive double fore-edge painting.