FIRST EDITION. Folio [33 x 25 cm], 13 leaves printed in gold and colours and heightened in gum arabic including title printed in gold and 12 leaves of coloured plates (one a secondary title), plus the original engraved and handcoloured ‘presentation leaf’, inscribed ‘Constantine Rodney Hervey from his affate friends. Algernon R. Parker and Francis Parker. On his leaving Eton, Xmas 1866’. A later publication issued by Paul Jerrard for the drawing room, still incorporating his colourful trademark flamboyant and exotic design. ‘Paul Jerrard’s origins are obscure, and he appears to have come from a humble background. He is primarily associated with lavishly produced gift books featuring elaborately hand-coloured lithographs, with text and ornament lithographed in gold… This gave unity to the page, and increased the decorative possibilities. The task must have been time consuming, and called for great precision and dexterity, quite apart from artistry… [Jerrard’s books] were aimed at women, and intended as objects of display. But Jerrard’s market is likely to have been less upper-class than that of earlier annuals, and the Rococo style itself can be associated by mid-century with what were considered less cultivated tastes. Nonetheless, there were still explicit references to female consumers.’ Although uncredited, a number of Jerrard’s earlier works are now known to have been designed Henry Noel Humphreys, however for Gems from Shelley Illustrated Jerrard used a different, as yet unknown artist, who is identified only with by a reversed ‘E’ in the style of medieval script found on several of the illustrations. The work was marketed at 25 shillings but was rather negatively reviewed in the Atheneum, not from any fault of quality but because the style of the 1850’s which Jerrard had adopted was beginning to seem outdated as the simpler forms exemplified by the ‘Illustrators of the Sixties’ began their rise in popularity. Jerrard published an ‘Elegant Suite of Table Books. Most appropriate for Marriage, Birthday, and Festive Presents’ that included works mainly on exotic, birds, flowers and historical scenes, however the Gems of Shelley is something of a swan song for this type of colour plate work as already photographers had begun to make serious inroads into the market, especially of topographical material, which spelt the end of this form of luxury item. Copies of the work were being remaindered at half the original price by 1862 and although Jerrard’s imprint now included a ‘Son’ the business did not survive although he continued to work as a printseller until his death in 1888. His eldest son, also Paul, became an organist however two other sons, Edwin and John, although still in the paper trade, were not dealing with the high end part of the market. OCLC records one copy in the UK, at the BL, and two in North America at Duke and British Columbia; see Paul Leathlean, Paul Jerrard, Publisher of ‘Special Presents’, in: The Book Collector, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 169 -183.