The Seasons; with five pictures by Jacquier and an introduction by John Beresford

London: The Nonesuch Press, 1927. Limited Edition. Near fine. 4to, 10 5/ 8 x 1 1/2 inches (270 x 190 mm); pp. [2] xx [2] 198 [2]. Five copperplate engravings and engraved decoration on title page, water-colored by hand with stencils, very light offset on facing pages. Full marbled cloth binding, calf label with gilt title at head of spine, which is somewhat sunned. Monotype Baskerville with Old face open and Fournier ornaments for headpieces, on Dutch mould-made paper.
This is copy 1222 (inked in limitation colophon) of 1500 printed

[Dreyfus 47]. A classic from 1776, The Seasons is a lengthy blank verse poem in four parts, reflecting on landscape and nature by the Scottish poet James Thomson (1700 - 1748) and his best known work. A dispute about its publishing rights gave rise to important legal decisions around copyright. Its German translation became the libretto for Haydn's oratorio by the same name.

'The Seasons may be said to be the life-work of the poet: he devoted twenty years to its composition, alteration and expansion. Thomson's poetry (which is more famous than familiar) is remarkable in that it anticipates not only the interest in nature as subject-matter, but even the diction and metre of the poetry of the Romantic Revival." [John Dreyfus. A History of The Nonesuch Press. London: 1981; p. 201] And the binding has a very special and durable feature in the hand-made cloth which was made in Leipzig. "It gives the formal richness of the old papers, with far greater durability." [p. 202]

The NONESUCH PRESS was a private press founded in 1922 in London by Francis Meynell, his second wife Vera Mendel, and their mutual friend David Garnett who was a bookseller in Soho's Gerrard Street, in the basement of which the press began. It was unusual among private presses as it used a small hand press to design books, but had them printed by commercial printers, in order to produce book designs with the quality of a fine-press but available to a wider audience at lower prices. Meynell also wanted to demonstrate that "mechanical means could be made to serve fine ends." He believed that the production of exquisitely designed and produced books was not the preserve of the private press predicated upon the example established by William Morris's Kelmscott Press, which emphasized the primacy of the hand press printed book.