Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1913 until his death in 1930. A medical doctor by profession, Bridges devoted himself to writing poetry after a lung condition forced him into early retirement. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929.

This book contains Bridges' poetic version of the classical love story, first recorded in the second century by Lucius Apuleius, in which the god Eros falls in love with the Cretan princess Psyche. It was printed by the Gregynog Press, a private press set up by sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies in Gregynog in Wales in 1922. This, the 100th of only 300 copies printed and bound in gold-tooled pigskin, was presented to Queen Mary by the Press in 1935, and bears her signature.



Further information

First published in 1885 by George Bell & Sons, 'Eros and Psyche' stands among Bridges' earliest compositions alongside 'The Growth of Love' and 'Prometheus'. This Gregynog edition of the poem, printed fifty years after its first appearance, was issued posthumously, though not without the poet's input: before his death in 1930, Bridges requested that Edward Burne-Jones' woodcut illustrations of the story be included with the poem. Burne-Jones (1833–1898) was a Pre-Raphaelite painter and a friend of the designer, author, and visionary socialist William Morris (1834–1896). When Morris published his own retelling of the Eros and Pysche story as part of his collection The Earthly Paradise (Kelmscott Press, 1896-97), he commissioned Burne-Jones to create a set of illustrations. By the 1930s, these woodblocks were worn out, but were recreated from Burne-Jones' original drawings by the artist Dorothy Hawksley (1884–1970).

These illustrations—numbering 23 in all, including the double frontispiece—were arranged sympathetic on the page alongside the typeface, designed by the calligrapher Graily Hewitt (1864–1952) after a fifteenth-century German edition of Dante, and the large initial letters, also by Hewitt and printed in green. The controller of the Press, Loyd Haberly, explained in a letter enclosed within the volume that the type, "part Gothic and part Renaissance" was perfectly suited to the page such that "two stanzas and the space between them exactly equal the height of the pictures."¹  Unfortunately for Haberly, the typeface (called 'Gwendolin', but also known as 'Gregynog' or 'Paradiso') was poorly received, drawing particular criticism from the famed typographer Stanley Morison, and was soon withdrawn.² Nevertheless, the finished book exemplifies the spirit of the Gregynog Press, which was established as a way of promoting fine printing and binding in Wales, and of providing training and work for local young people—as Haberly puts it, Eros and Psyche is "entirely the manual work of young Welsh country boys and girls."



References

¹ Letter from Loyd Haberly to Queen Mary, undated, tipped-in to RCIN 1121523.

² See David G. Lewis (ed.), Gwendolin: Seventy-Five Years On (Gwasg Gregynog, 2010). A copy is held at RCIN 1102553.