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GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS CHAUCER (GEOFFREY) Troilus and Crisdye, NUMBER 30 OF 225 COPIES on paper, Waltham St Lawrence, Golden Cockerel Press, 1927 image 1
GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS CHAUCER (GEOFFREY) Troilus and Crisdye, NUMBER 30 OF 225 COPIES on paper, Waltham St Lawrence, Golden Cockerel Press, 1927 image 2
GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS CHAUCER (GEOFFREY) Troilus and Crisdye, NUMBER 30 OF 225 COPIES on paper, Waltham St Lawrence, Golden Cockerel Press, 1927 image 3
GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS CHAUCER (GEOFFREY) Troilus and Crisdye, NUMBER 30 OF 225 COPIES on paper, Waltham St Lawrence, Golden Cockerel Press, 1927 image 4
GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS CHAUCER (GEOFFREY) Troilus and Crisdye, NUMBER 30 OF 225 COPIES on paper, Waltham St Lawrence, Golden Cockerel Press, 1927 image 5
Private Press: Property of a Collector
Lot 119

GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS
CHAUCER (GEOFFREY) Troilus and Crisdye, NUMBER 30 OF 225 COPIES on paper, 1927

10 – 20 March 2025, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £8,320 inc. premium

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GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS

CHAUCER (GEOFFREY) Troilus and Crisdye, NUMBER 30 OF 225 COPIES on paper, printed in red, blue and black, 5 full-page engravings by Eric Gill, faint marginal spotting, original tan-morocco-backed patterned boards by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, gilt lettering on spine, t.e.g., light wear, original slipcase [Chanticleer 50; Gill 279], 4to, Waltham St Lawrence, Golden Cockerel Press, 1927

Footnotes

"ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCTIONS OF ITS KIND"

Troilus and Criseyde stands as the first of three landmark Golden Cockerel Press editions produced through the collaboration of Robert Gibbings and Eric Gill. The prospectus for this work invited a public to anticipate "one of the most important productions of its kind since the days of the Kelmscott press".

The Middle English text, edited by Arundell del Re, features Gill's masterful woodcuts, including two portraits of Chaucer (one with Cupid whispering in his ear, another showing him writing Troilus) along with four full-page illustrations and distinctive page borders that reimagine medieval manuscript traditions through a creative interplay of text and image.

While Gill's whimsical illustrated borders sparked some controversy for their provocative nature, they were later successfully repurposed in the Golden Cockerel Canterbury Tales. The book's combination of superior materials, typography, illustration, and printing skill has made it one of the most valuable and sought-after Golden Cockerel publications, with its worth often matching that of the Press's magnum opus, The Four Gospels, despite the latter's larger print run of 500 copies.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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