The Comely Frontispiece. The Emblematic Title-Page in England, 1550-1660

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. ,. Fine in Fine dust jacket. 1979. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. 0710085540 . In the original publisher's brown cloth hardback, sharp-cornered, with bright gilt titling to the spine. Slight 'pushing' to the head/tail of the spine from storage - negligible (NO damage) . In the publisher's pictorial dust-jacket, which is now in a new protective clear - removable - bookfilm plastic cover and looks Fine. A few faint marks to the page fore-edges if you look closely, but they present as clean. A PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION on the front free endpaper to 'Irene' (Joyce Irene Whalley - also a literary author) from 'Ronald' (the co-author Ronald Lightbown). Otherwise internally no other inscriptions or marks. (viii) + 248pp. 20 essays on 20 important works each with their full page Frontispiece illustrated in b/w. Plus a long Introduction. Footnotes. Bibliographical notes. Abbreviations, and Index. An Excellent copy. "When the title page came along in the 16th century, it was just letter-press. But as the 16th century wore on, title pages grew more ambitious, and were engraved, with the title enclosed in a structure modelled on the facades of buildings of the time. The panels of these fantastic inky edifices included allegorical figures (quite often well-endowed ladies) , pithy sayings and emblematic vignettes. It’s not always easy to work out who was responsible for what. The designs are often signed with a name or names followed by a phrase (in Latin and abbreviated) which at least in theory explained what that person did – delineavit (drew) , invenit (devised) , sculpsit (engraved) or just fecit (made) – but in practice the roles are blurred. This, the best book on the subject, is on English title pages. The authors show that in England it was often the author who devised the design..." See Images; Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall, ; 256 pages; Signed by One Author .