COLERIDGE, Samuel T. The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

COLERIDGE, Samuel T. The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by James Dykes Campbell. London: MacMillan & Co, 1893. Crown octavo. pp. cxxiv, 667 (double column). Bound in a cameo plaquette binding à la fanfare. All edges gilt. A fine example of this magnificent binding technique.

The lavish ‘à la fanfare’ style was developed in Paris in the 16th century. Paradoxically its name, (in French, à la fanfare) derives from a book bound long after the popularity of the style had declined. That elaborate style was popular in France and England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Although the word “fanfare” evokes showy ornamentation, it is not a descriptive term. Joseph Thouvenin revived the style in 1829 for a binding of Les fanfares et corvées abbadesques des Roule- Bontemps de la Haute et Basse Coquaine et dépendances. The original style grew out of the Grolieresque strapwork style and, less directly, Eastern ornament.