[Édouard Guillaume, Paris printer; George Routledge & Sons, London publishers.] Printed promotional 'Catalogue of Guillaume's Nelumbos 1893'. With illustrations and specimen pages 'on vellum of the paper-mills of Le Marais'.

The only copy of this item on OCLC WorldCat is in the Canadian National Archives. An attractive and characteristic piece of late nineteenth-century French printing. The present copy is 14 + [1] pp, 16mo. With frontispiece and eight illustrations and vignettes. Stitched booklet (13 x 7.5 cm). In wraps printed in black and red. In fair condition, lightly aged, in grubby wraps. Tipped-in before the back cover, is a two-page 'Specimen of the text and illustrations on vellum of the paper-mills of Le Marais', on a bifolium, with a page of text on the reverse of the first leaf and a full-page illustration on the second. On reverse of title: 'The illustrations in this catalogue are taken from the books that have already appeared in La Petite Collection Guillaume'. Colophon reads: 'THESE BOOKS | have been composed, engraved, printed, stitched and bound in cloth at the printing office of Edouard Guillaume 105, boulevard Brune, 105 | PARIS'. The text begins: 'The highest tribute that could be offered to La Petite Collection Guillaume is the manner in which it has been imitated both in Europe and America.' Later on the announcement is made that 'Messrs. George Routledge & Sons believe that the great Anglo-American public have sufficiently good taste not to support imitations of this kind, and therefore intend to issue in English the original Guillaume Collection produced in the same marvellous manner as the French Edition.' Details of forthcoming titles and price are given, on a plan of two volumes a month. The illustrators are named as 'Conconi, Fournier (Grand Prix de Rome), Gambard, Marold, Mittis, Rossi, and others'. The final two pages carry a list of 'Volumes in Preparation'.