A first edition copy of Anne Thackeray’s 1869 short story collection, signed in “her round, ballooning hand,” and dressed in a handsome, if well-handled, signed binding by Roger de Coverly; unusual signed.
The British author Anne Thackeray (later Lady Ritchie; 1837–1919), whose novels and short stories were “highly regarded in their time” and included a novelisation of the life of the C18th artist Angelica Kauffman RA, was born into a literary family. The daughter (and biographer) of William Makepeace Thackeray and Isabella Gethin Creagh Shawe, later, she was ‘Aunt Anny’ to Virginia and Vanessa Stephen and their siblings. Thackeray’s younger sister Minny married Leslie Stephen in 1867 and the trio lived, fairly successfully, together until Minny’s death from pre-eclampia in 1875; Thackeray wrote To Esther, as well her novels The Village on the Cliff (1867) and Old Kensington (1873) at their shared home in Onslow Gardens, London.
Thackeray Ritchie had a highly variable signature; her early preference for thick, loaded nibs is also seen in inscribed copies held by Eton Library, including a copy of To Esther inscribed to Minny Stephen and featuring a moving, private doodle of intertwined hands.
Roger de Coverly (1831-1914) was a London-based and Zaehnsdorf-apprenticed bookbinder. His bindery was patronised by aristocrats, artists and writers, including T E Lawrence. His style was “rather conservative and retrospective but the good quality materials used [as here] and his stated goal, to bind ‘excellently rather than cheaply’ made up for lack of originality, for some at least” (Marks, 2015).
Not in Sadleir; Wolff 5886; Henrietta Garnett (2004) Anny: A Life of Anne Thackeray Ritchie (London: Chatto & Windus); P J M Marks (2015) ‘The Singing Bookbinder: Roger de Coverly,’ BL Untold Lives Blog.