Gift of Love and Friendship

Bound in brown cloth with elaborate black and gold stamped decorations to the boards and spine. The front board with a gilt stamped oval French Ivory piece in the center. The boards with minor rubbing and the corners just starting. Internally the leaves are generally clean with minor fox marks. All edges gilt. Letterpress printed in gold colours.

Please see the slideshow in order to gain a greater appreciation of the contents.

Of Victorian Gift Books

The Victorian gift book market emerged in a time of mass-production, increased literacy, and growing demand of middle-class buyers. Most gift books were made from 1855 to 1875, the ‘golden age’ of wood-engraved illustration. These books—explicitly intended to be given as gifts—were normally published in late November in time for Christmas. In spite of their intention as Christmas gifts, seasonal content was not the main criterion for gift books but, rather, they are characterized by ornamental bindings and intricate illustrations.

Gift book bindings are often bright and elaborately gilded. Gift books were a display of cultural capital and, in many cases, design took precedent over content, with an emphasis on the volumes being seen rather than read. Their emphasis on aesthetic form over content was criticized by contemporaries, but their visual and material qualities were a welcome addition to many middle-class domestic spaces. An anonymous critic for The Saturday Review wrote that, “Nobody expects or wishes for originality, or depth, or learning in a Christmas book. Hallam or Grote or Milman or Darwin is not what a Christmas book is made of..

Today these books, that are still in good shape, remain highly collectable.