COSWAY-STYLE BINDING – THOMAS, Benjamin P. (1902-1956). Abraham Lincoln: A Biography. New York: Alfred P. Knopf, 1952.

Signed limited edition of Thomas’s best-selling Lincoln biography, in a Cosway-style binding for Kroch’s & Brentano’s. No. 494 of 500 copies. Dr. Thomas’s feat of writing a “readable and authoritative” biography of Abraham Lincoln in a single volume is properly memorialized by this limited special edition “Borzoi Book” from Bayntun and Knopf (see Donald W. Riddle’s review in Journal of American History, Vol. 39 Issue 3, December 1952 pp. 564-565).

Octavo (225 x 145mm). Half-title, title printed in red and black. Illustrated from photographs; four maps. Full red morocco gilt by Bayntun (Rivière), upper cover with frame surrounding a hand-painted miniature on ivorine, being a bust portrait of Lincoln; spines gilt in six compartments with raised bands, board edges decorated in gilt, turn-ins gilt, moiré silk doublures, stamp-signed by the binders on the upper turn-in, all edges gilt. Custom red cloth clamshell box.