[Fine Binding | Leonard Mounteney] A Masque of Love

Wood, Charles Erskine Scott. A Masque of Love. Chicago: Walter M. Hill, 1904. One of 500 copies printed at the Elston Press of New Rochelle, New York. Title page decorated with an arabesque bar and a small cherub. Initials of scene openings elaborately wood-engraved. Bound in 3/4 crushed morocco by Leonard Mounteney (stamp signed on front inner dentelle) with square corners and patterned paper boards; each corner with a gilt fleuron at corner and fillets and dot rules. Leather at spine includes a band of line and dot rules with two sizes of inlaid red hearts to the center of the band. Spine with four bands and large lower compartment richly gilt with leaves, branches, and inlaid hearts. Second, third, and fifth compartments include title, author, and press in gilt. All edges gilt with beautiful green silk brocade endpapers. Measures approx. 6" x 8.5". Some light browning to edges of leather and endpapers.

Mounteney worked as an extra finisher at Riviere & Son in London until 1924, when he joined the Extra Bindery at R. R. Donnelley in Chicago, working alongside Alfred de Sauty. He left Donnelley in 1926 to join Cuneo's hand bindery, also in Chicago.