Unusal Pope book

Now I have found a book that my mother had wrapped in plastic as
fragile. It is a full calf bound edition of the Complete Works of
Alexander Pope, two volumes bound in one, New York: Leavitt and Allen
(1848), quarto size, marbled endpapers, but with both hinges detached
and the detached spine cover thin and fragile, and bright gilt on all
three edges of the papers, all of which are white, and frontispiece
facing title page..


I have tried to research this, but only come up with three copies in the
commercial lists, and all of them are cloth bound. I checked through
KVK to see if I could find the book I have. No luck.


So now I am wondering (a) are the cloth bound books originally calf and
are not recovered; (b) was there a very small calf bound edition; (c)
another possibility? Any help would be appreciated.


Francis A. Miniter

wrote:

A first possibility might be that the book was originally published
in cloth, and that this is a presentation or prize binding of some
kind. However in that case you might expect a special bookplate
to record that fact.

At that time *many* people (rich folks, of course) had their books bound
themselves, so leather binding variants are legion. I think the books were
often sold unbound, rather than a cloth cover being taken off and the leather
being put on.

--Helen