Very good, upper edge of covers lightly soiled with several minor marks to rear, beginnings of split to tail of spine, text block slightly leaning with intermittent light foxing to earlier and later leaves as in most copies.
Announced on its colophon as ‘the Story of Amis & Amile, done out of the ancient French into English, by William Morris,’ this medieval French romance dates from the same period as King Florus, also translated by Morris and published by Kelmscott the year previous. The tale, versions of which date back as far as 1090, details a lifelong friendship in which the well-born Amis impersonates Amile in a trial by combat in order to save his friend’s life. Having committed perjury, Amis is stricken by leprosy; events take a macabre turn when Amile is visited by an angel who claims that Amis can only be cured with the blood of Amile’s infant children.
A book that, in its re-translation and re-presentation of a once-popular folk tale, neatly embodies in its content the wider formal project of Kelmscott Press: to revive and preserve ‘the calligraphy of the Middle Ages & of the earlier printing which took its place’ (A Note by William Morris On His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press). Such an approach is evident in the careful choice of typeface, generous margins, decorative initials and, most strikingly, the intricately trellised and embellished title page, engraved as it is in the trademark Kelmscott style. A small yet floridly beautiful book from the most lastingly influential private press of the late Victorian era.
