CARDEW, GLORIA. GUILD OF WOMEN-BINDERS A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, CIRCA 1900published J.M Dent & Co., London 1895, with plates illustrated by R. Anning Bell and hand-coloured by Gloria Cardew, bound in calf, probably by the Guild of Women-Binders, the cover worked in relief with the figure of Puck and other fairies, bears paper label pasted to the interior and bearing inscription THE ILLUSTRATIONS IN THIS BOOK WERE COLOURED BY HAND BY MISS GLORIA CARDEW Footnote: Literature: Kaplan, Wendy (ed.) Scotland Creates: 5000 Years of Art and Design, Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1990, pp.152-3, fig 10.3 where a book bound by Annie S Macdonald is illustrated Note: Although Gloria Cardew was not a bookbinder, “many books coloured by her were bound by members of the Guild” (Tidcombe, p. 126). This is largely due to Frank Karslake (1851-1920), who acted as an agent of hers in 1898 (IBIS Journal, 2014, p. 75). Cardew was a prolific hand-colourist of book illustration and often worked for the Guild, as well as the Kelmscott and Vale Presses. Little is known of her and it was thought that her name was a pseudonym, although her photograph was published in the 1898 Guild of Women-Binders exhibition catalogue of 1898. Karslake established the Guild of Women-Binders in May 1898 at 61, Charing Cross Road, London in the same building as his other bindery, The Hampstead Bindery. The bindery produced lavishly-bound books in the highest quality material and took on many different binders, such as Annie S. MacDonald, Jessie McGibbon, Phoebe Traquair, Florence de Rheims, and Karslake’s two daughters, Constance & Olive Karslake. A similar binding held in the National Library of Scotland by Annie S. Macdonald (1849-1924) shows the same technique as the current example in moulded natural morocco. Macdonald, a friend of Traquair re-introduced the craft of artistic bookbinding in Edinburgh in the mid-1890s and she, Traquair and others were affiliated with not only to the new Edinburgh Arts and Crafts Club but to the Guild of Women-Binders from 1898. The subject of the current lot is based on the painting Puck Fleeing before the Dawn by David Scott (1806-1849), currently held in the National Gallery of Scotland (NG 992).