CASTLE, Agnes. Bookplate of Walter Herries Pollock 1893
Bookplate itself 1068mm x 128mm, mounted 218mm x 265mm. In acid-proof mount.
Engraved Pictorial bookplate of Walter Herries Pollock (1850 - 1926). Pollock was a writer, poet, lecturer and journalist. He was a member of the esteemed Pollock family, the second son of Sir William Pollock, 2nd Baronet, his brother was a famous lawyer and his son became a famous journalist whilst one of his grand-uncles was Chief Justice of Bombay and another was a Field Marshall. Walter Pollock was well known in literary circles and was close friends with Wilde, Stevenson, Kipling, Andrew Lang and Henry Irving.
This bookplate was designed for Pollock by Agnes Castle, whose husband Egerton was friends with Pollock, it is described in her husband's book on English bookplates:
'Mr. Walter Pollock's portrait plate, on the other hand, belongs to some extent to the symbolic class. It is a portrait "in character," namely, that of Fencer and Poet. — A gentleman in the dress of Elizabethan days waits at some trysting spot in a forest glade for the arrival of a tardy opponent, and beguiles the obnoxious waiting time by polishing some impromptu verses lately jotted down on his tablets. It is well known that the present editor of the " Saturday Review" — writer, playwright, poet, and hedonist — finds keen delight in matters dimicatory, especially in the fence of rapier and dagger. The wounded boar tearing away in the distance is an unconventionally heraldic allusion to the crest borne by the singularly distinguished family of which Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., LL.D., is the present head. This plate, devised and drawn by Agnes Castle, gives a very characteristic likeness of the owner.' (English Bookplates Ancient and Modern by Egerton Castle London 1893 pp. 280-81).
Franks Catalogue of British and American Bookplates, Vol. II, page 370, no. 23788.
#338082