Daphnis and Chloe is the only known work by the second-century Greek author Longus. This influential pastoral romance was first translated into French by Jacques Amyot (1513–1593) in the mid-sixteenth century and has remained highly popular for its novelistic form and strong characterisation.

This copy of Amyot's text was printed by the Ashendene Press, a private press established in 1895 by C.H. St John Hornby (1867–1946). One of only twenty copies on vellum, it was bound by W.H. Smith in olive pigskin and may have been presented to Queen Mary.


Further information

C.H. St John Hornby founded the Ashendene Press after an influential visit to William Morris’ Kelmscott Press in 1893 and a fruitful association with the Daniel Press at Oxford. It was named after, and initially housed at, Hornby’s family home in Hertfordshire, but moved to Chelsea in 1899. The selection of texts printed at Ashendene depended partly on Hornby's own literary taste, and on whether the books “gave scope for a certain gaiety of treatment in the use of coloured initials and chapter headings.”[1]
  
The Ashendene Daphnis et Chloe is one of the finest books produced by the Press. Its twenty-nine woodcut illustrations were made by Gwen Raverat (1885–1957), one of the founders of the Society of Wood Engravers, while the illuminated initials in blue and gold were hand-drawn by the calligrapher Graily Hewitt (1864–1952). It is one of four Ashendene books printed in the 'Ptolmey' type designed by Emery Walker (1851–1933), based upon a fount used in a 1482 edition of Ptolmey's Geographia. The shoulder-text and marginal notes are printed in red ink. The upper cover of the binding is decorated with a gilt centrepiece depicting Daphnis and Chloe in scene of bucolic bliss; as with most Ashendene editions in W.H. Smith bindings, the design is probably by Sidney Cockerell.[2]

In a letter addressed to the Royal Librarian, dated June 1934, St John Hornby enquires "whether the vellum copy of my ‘Daphnis et Chloe’ which you subscribed for some time ago was for yourself or for the Royal Library".[3] If the latter, Hornby asks that it be presented to Queen Mary, "for whom I have a clear admiration both as Queen & woman". In September 1934 this copy was recorded in the acquisitions register as ‘Presented to the Queen by Sir C. Hornby’, but it is unclear whether the Queen received the book in person: it is not recorded in the transfer lists from the Private Secretary’s Office (at Buckingham Palace) or the Queen’s own library catalogue. Moreover, there are none of the inscriptions in the Queen’s hand usually associated with transfers to the Royal Library from her personal collections, and the volume was given a George V ‘Royal Library’ type bookplate. It is more likely that, while the presentation was acknowledged, the volume was deposited immediately in the Royal Library as intended by the Librarian.


Bibliographic details
Extent: 4to.  [4], iv, 164 p. : ill. (woodcuts)




References

[1] Quoted in Colin Franklin, The Private Presses, 2nd edition (Scolar Press, 1991), p. 52.

[2] The Private Presses, p. 55.

[3] This letter is now enclosed within this volume and catalogued as RCIN 1051187.b.