FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS: A MEMOIR

London: John Nimmo, 1897. 212 x 141 mm. (8 1/4 x 5 1/2"). x, [2], 323 pp.
VERY PRETTY HAZEL BROWN MOROCCO, GILT IN AN ARTS & CRAFTS DESIGN featuring rows of roses connected diagonally by leafy branches on the covers, raised bands, spine panels with central diamond shape formed by leaves and branches, turn-ins with leafy sprigs along sides, roses at corners, marbled rose-colored endpapers, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. With frontispiece portrait of Morris and two black & white photogravure plates of his church and rectory. ◆Spine evenly sunned to a pleasing honey brown, flyleaves a bit foxed, but a fine copy--clean and smooth internally, in a binding glistening with gold.

This is an especially animated and appealing example of Arts & Crafts-style hand bookbinding, here covering a son's fond reminiscences of his father, a clergyman best known for his efforts to protect British birds. Frances Orpen Morris (1810-93) showed a great interest in the natural world--particularly birds and insects--from an early age. While reading classics at Oxford, he organized the insect collection at the Ashmolean Museum. And after graduation, when he became rector of a parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, he found enough time away from clerical duties to explore the countryside and study the birds and insects he found there. A prolific writer on topics both sacred and secular, he was, DNB notes, "perhaps best known for his voluminous, illustrated books on natural history," especially those on British birds produced in collaboration with woodblock color printer Benjamin Fawcett. "In all his work on natural history he espoused the belief that his studies 'infallibly lead from the works of nature up to the God of Nature.'" (DNB) He was particularly concerned with the protection of wild birds, travelling to London to testify before a Parliamentary committee on the topic. Unfortunately, our binding is unsigned, but it clearly is the work of a talented designer and artisan. The roses used so profusely here are not the Tudor style known from Cobden-Sanderson's designs, but a softer, naturalistic bloom that more closely resembles the roses in William Morris' designs. In any case, they suggest a vast welcoming field of flowers on which birds and insects would happily alight..