Anne Lydia Bond, Three Gems in One Setting (1860)

Anne Lydia Bond (1822-1881) was an artist and photographic colourist from Southsea, Hampshire who produced illustrated editions of popular poetry in the nineteenth-century including Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shallot’ (1852) as well as writing and illustrating her own children’s books such as The Child’s Natural History (1867). The Gems in One Setting (1860) provides illustrations to accompany Felica Hemans’ ‘The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England’ alongside Alfred Lloyd Tennyson’s ‘The Poets Song’ and Thomas Campbell’s ‘The Field Flowers’.

With interlaced floral borders, the pages are designed to imitate medieval illuminated manuscripts, a style popularised by the Pre-Raphaelites and common in mid-century Victorian art. This high-value gift book attests to the canonical status of Hemans’ poem had achieved by the mid-century.

Full Text: Anne Lydia Bond, Three Gems in One Setting (1860)

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