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Areopagitica

Hammersmith, England: Doves Press, 1907. Stk. PR 3570 A7 1907.

On display is John Milton’s Areopagitica, with its classic bibliophilic message: ‘…but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master-spirit, imbalm’d & treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life.’ It is rather ironic to learn that in 1911, T.J. Cobden-Sanderson made ‘the last will and testament’ of the Doves Press, and acting on it, consigned all the type, punches and matrices into the Thames. To him, the type was consecrated and not for commercial use, as his partner Emery Walker had suggested. This fine book was printed by both men – in happier times.