London [Westminster]: de Worde, 14 September 1510. [Click on linked title above to see woodcut on folio Cxxvii (127)]
London: Wynkyn de Worde, 14th September 1510. First edition in English. English translation of the “Fleur des Commandements de Dieu”. STC 23876., 1510. Hardcover. Book Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Folio; size of the binding: 8 inches x 11 1/8 in., (height of page: 10 3/4 in.). Preliminaries: Tabula: 16 of 24 leaves (lacking A1-6, B1-2); text of the Tabula beginning at B3-D6; Text: 263 of 264 leaves (lacking Uu3 [Fol. 252]). Printed in double columns in black letter type; illustrated with 4 various size woodcuts, printer's device at the end; woodcut grotesque 5-line initials. Woodcuts are in the text at: A1 (Fol. 1), C2 (Fol. 14), F6 (Fol. 36), Y1 (Fol. 127) (Hodnett: English Woodcuts 1480-1535; 451, 362, 477, 538, the first use of two blocks). Many of the folios are misnumbered, with a bookseller's note in ink on the first flyleaf; pencil collation marks in the lower left corners of the leaves. Bound in full, dark green morocco by Leighton, with their stamp; the binding features five raised bands on the spine, with gilt-lettered titling, and the compartments with elaborate blindstamped decorations, the covers feature designs constructed of squares with blindstamped animal forms, and other blindstamped decorations in the borders, the designs on the front and back cover differ slightly; all edges gilt. A set of eight blank leaves is bound in at the front, following the two added flyleaves. The first few pages of the Tabula (B3-6 show a paper repair in the upper right quarter, and C1-2 shows smaller stains to the paper in that area. D6 of the Tabula shows a small, early musical notation in ink. The colophon page and the facing page show early inscriptions, which have been mostly scratched over in ink; the upper margin of the printer's mark page shows a partly inked over inscription, and an early inscription in English, with a possible early owner's name: Thomas Ffaryrington, with the note that should this book be lost, that the finder should please return it; this inscription is repeated at the top of T5 (Fol. 112), and there is another small inscription in the lower margin of Xx3. The third woodcut (at F6; Fol. 36), shows a tan stain within the woodcut text section; some stains to the final leaf. Translated by Andrew Chertsey (who did other translations for Wynkyn de Worde), in 1509 from the French original (the first French printing appeared in Rouen in 1496). This is the excessively rare first English edition in the printing of 1510; Wynkyn de Worde only reprinted this book once, in 1521, using the same illustrations. The NUC only records two copies in America (the imperfect copy at the Huntington, and the Yale copy). There also was the Saint John's Seminary (Doheny) copy, which lacked the preliminaries. STC 23876 (Under: Ten Commandments). Bookseller Inventory # ABE-5027448307
Asking $125,000 (3/18/2022, unchanged since 2011)