Onlaid brown morocco by Bayntun-Riviere. A finely bound example of The Golden Cockerel Press edition of Thomas More's important contribution to English philosophy which coined the term utopia.

Number 452 from a limited edition of 500 copies printed by The Golden Cockerell Press, which follows the text of the first English translation made by Ralph Robinson (1520-1577) for the private use of his friend, George Tadlow, a City of London haberdasher. A loose rendering, Robinson initially resisted calls for publication before the work was printed in 1551. Nevertheless, his translation is now regarded 'among the treasures of our literature' (Arber) as an imaginative piece of sixteenth-century prose.

The tale begins when More encounters the fictional character Raphael Hythloday, a traveller who has just returned from voyages with Amerigo Vespucci. Hythloday tells More of a distant island called Utopia, where all property is held in common and gold and silver are used not as currency but as the material for making shackles and chamber pots. However, all is not as it seems, and the paradoxes in the names of Hythloday ('the nonsense speaker') and Utopia ('nowhere') reveal a more complex story.

Limited edition, number 452 of 500 copies; 4to (270 x 200 mm); title printed in black & blue, floreated initials by Eric Gill; bookplate to verso of front free endpaper, silk doublures; full brown morocco by Bayntun-Riviere, green leaf frame onlaid to panels within single gilt filet border, gilt spine in 6 compartments, alternating onlaid green leaves and gilt lettering, top-edge gilt, others uncut, with brown cloth solander box, green morocco lettering piece to spine, slight spotting to final few ff, otherwise internally clean, near fine; [2], xiii, 137, [3]pp.

Chanticleer 65.