The Song of Roland

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One of the most beautiful volumes in our Rare Book Room is The Song of Roland, printed at the Riverside Press for Houghton Mifflin & Company in 1906. It was designed by the noted typographer, Bruce Rogers, and our copy is number 34 of the limited run of 220 copies. Accompanying our copy is the prospectus, sent out by the publisher in Sept. 1906, advertising the publication.

The Song of Roland’ will be the third book in the Riverside Press Editions to be printed on hand presses from type. It is a folio 11 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches in size, and will contain about forty pages. The type is the beautiful French Gothic used in the ‘Parlement of Foules,’ and the present volume is set in double columns with marginal notes in brown and rubricated folios as page headings. The title page is printed in red and black in the early French manner, and bears a new printers’ mark in color. The paper is an American hand-made of pleasant antique tone. The illustrations are an unique feature of the book. They are seven in numbers, and are derived from the window of Charlemagne in the Cathedral at Chartres, noted for the beauty of its 13th century glass. Mr. Rogers visited Chartres especially to study this window, and the treatment of the illustrations is the result of his notes. The compartments of the window picturing events in the Legend of Roland have been carefully drawn and reproduced. The lead lines are printed with the type, and the colors are afterwards filled in by hand in conformity to the color scheme of the window itself. The effect is surprisingly rich and decorative. The arrangement of the illustrations in the page is also worthy of note as they are so disposed as to make them integral parts of the typography. The binding is of antique vellum with paper sides bearing a pattern taken from paintings in the crypt at Chartres. 200 copies will be printed, of which 200 are offered for sale at $25.00, net, each. Sept. 1, 1906.”

 

 

 

 

The French epic poem tells the story of Roland and Oliver, Charlemagne and his war with the Saracens, and the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778. Dated between 1040 and 1115, the text has about 4,000 lines of poetry, and is the first example of the chanson de geste, a genre celebrating ledgendary deeds.
Our thanks go to Dr. H.M. Marvin, Davidson class of 1914, for giving us the beautiful work.