The Palace Of Pleasure by William Painter de Bliss, Douglas Percy (Illustrator) - 1929

London: Cresset, 1929. Leather Bound. Full vellum, leather spine labels lettered in gilt. Teg. Fine in very good, uncommonly found original black slipcase. Bliss, Douglas Percy. XXX, 196, IX 244. IX 254, VIII 226 pages. 30 x 20 cm. Limited edition Copy XXIV of 30 special numbered copies printed on hand-made paper and bound in full vellum printed at the Oxford University Press in Poliphilus type. Total run was 530 copies [see: RANSOM p.7]. Introduction by Hamish Miles, illustrated by Percy Bliss -- colored frontispieces, black and white headpieces. Bliss, a wood engraver was a close friend of Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden, studied with William Rothenstein and John Nash. Originally published 1566-1567, this collection of stories adapted from Greek, Latin, French and Italian literature was a source for Elizabethan dramatists. Painter, clerk of Queen Elizabeth's Ordinance compiled the collection of stories, and like others amassed a personal fortune through embezzlement, endemic in the Elizabethan civil service.