Volume 2

The journals of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, 1879-1922.

  • Cobden-Sanderson, T. J. (Thomas James), 1840-1922.
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The journals of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, 1879-1922. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/462 (page 6)
    The sun shines on the shore. The new year comes up apace. On Saturday it was decided to print Paradise Lost as the third publication of the Doves Press. There appear to be so many lions in the path of the other books under considera¬ tion: The Banquet and the Trial and Death of Socrates—copyright; the Classical Poems of Tennyson—Lord Tennyson’s permis¬ sion; Mackail’s address on W. Morris—copyright, for there is some doubt whether it would not be an infringement of Longmans’ copyright in the Life; and so on. It is half decided also, in view of the long time it would take to print a folio Bible—the estimate was eight years!—to print the same size Bible, but in quarto, and for that purpose to get a double crown printing press, and additional com¬ positors and pressmen. Mason is at present engaged on a double specimen page— the first page, and the first page with poetry, side by side. The Ideal Book is now before the world—nearly twice sold out. So is the Agricola; Unto this Last has been with¬ drawn. So the way is clear for Paradise Lost, and the Bible. And after that, or rather after Paradise Lost, I hope it will be possible to print the Classical Poems of Lord Tennyson, of which I have a very clear “image.” I would propose to print in red as prologue, Achilles over the Trench, and as epilogue, also in red, Hector and the Bridge of War, where “all the heavens opened,” etc., and between them, in solemn procession in black, CEnone, Ulysses, Tithonus, Tiresias, Demeter and Persephone, and The Death of (Enone. The last three, and the two translations, are copyright; and though we have Macmillan’s permission, we have to await that of Lord Tennyson, and he is away in South Australia. But time flies! I am now happy, “soaring above th’ Aonian Mount and brooding dove-like on the vast abyss!” 5 th March, Tuesday. I took Mackail’s William Morris to Longmans’, to see if it were an infringement of Longmans’ copyright in the Life.