1906 ❧ ROGERS, BRUCE, designer. 1870-1957. The Song of Roland, translated from the French by Isabel Butler. Cambridge, MA: Printed by the Riverside Press for Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1906. Small folio (445 x 288 mm). Title decorated with a hand-colored rectangular panel containing the Riverside Press device flanked by the initials 'b' and 'r' (for Bruce Rogers), set against a blue background interwoven with green and pink thistles, with a hand-colored headpiece vignette and five large roundels. Quarter vellum, patterned paper-covered boards decorated with a repeating gilt fleur-de-lis pattern, corners tipped in vellum. LIMITED EDITION, number 87 of 220 copies printed. A masterpiece of the American Arts and Crafts movement, widely recognized as Bruce Rogers' finest and most elusive design for the Riverside Press. The 11th-century chanson de geste celebrating Charlemagne and the tragic, heroic last stand of his nephew at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass stands as the foundational monument of early French literature. Rather than presenting it in a standard modern format, Rogers orchestrated a typographic transformation designed to make the reader feel as though they were experiencing an illuminated medieval manuscript or standing directly inside a Gothic cathedral. President Theodore Roosevelt was so taken by his copy that he famously visited the Houghton Mifflin facility just to congratulate the team. Haas 69; The BR Thirty; Warde 69. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing