The Song of Songs.: Called by Many the Canticle of Canticles.

Waltham St Lawrence: Golden Cockerel Press,, 1925. Gill's remarkable fusion of religious text with erotic illustration First Golden Cockerel edition, number 246 of 750 copies. Of all the books Gill illustrated, it was perhaps The Song of Songs which gave him the freest reign to explore the relationship of the erotic and the religious, the fusion of which characterised his illustrations throughout his career. It stands among his most significant works. "The most important Golden Cockerel editions for which Eric Gill provided the engravings were The Song of Songs (1925), Troilus and Criseyde (1927), The Canterbury Tales (1928), and The Four Gospels of 1931 - Gill's and Gibbings's tour de force. No other wood-engraver of the period comes near to Gill's originality and verve. But, once again, the explicit eroticism of The Song of Songs and of Gill's later illustrations for E. Powys Mather's Procreant Hymn of 1926 shocked many of his former supporters and drew puzzled reproaches from the Dominicans" (ODNB). Quarto. Original white cloth, lettering to spine in gilt. With dust jacket. Text printed in red and black. With 19 wood-engraved illustrations throughout by Eric Gill. Corners slightly bumped, browning to endpapers as usual, a near-fine and sharp copy; dust jacket slightly toned with some minor foxing, wear and minor loss to extremities, short closed tear to front panel, a very good example of a rare jacket. Chanticleer 31; Gill 275.