The Better Land [Female Illuminator]; Hemans, Mrs [Felicia]; Illuminated By Baker, Helen; [Preface By Wilberforce, Samuel]:

First edition. Quarto (23 x 28cm). Publisher's original maroon cloth over bevelled boards with gilt titles and decoration to the upper board, repeated in blind to the lower board. All edges gilt. 11 unnumbered thick card leaves printed on rectos only, mounted on stubs, comprising a chromolithographic title page, followed by a preface by Rev. Samuel Wilberforce printed in red and black, and 9 chromolithographic leaves in the style of an illuminated manuscript, richly coloured and incorporating gold and silver. One leaf embellished with an original albumen photographic vignette. Expertly re-cased. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with a hint of wear to the spine ends and corners. The contents with a small area of abrasion to the front pastedown and some scattered foxing (heavier to the endpapers) are otherwise in very good order. A beautiful edition of the Romantic poet Felicia Heman's poem 'The Better Land', splendidly illuminated by Helen Baker and printed in chromolithography by Day & Son. As Samuel Wilberforce notes in his preface, the work was produced to aid the rebuilding of St James Church, Ramsden in Oxfordshire. Helen Baker was a younger sister to the Rev. Robert Lowbridge Baker then parish priest at Ramsden. We can trace no other publications by Baker, but she was certainly very talented, as Wilberforce asserts: "I believe that all who themselves are gifted with the power of appreciating beauty will thoroughly appreciate the genius which has designed, and the skill which has executed these illustrations". A scarce title, with only two institutional copies recorded by LibraryHub (Bodleian & Cambridge).