CHEYNE

See Wheatley's entry in the Oxford DNB. In good condition, lightly aged. The aquatint bookplate, in black and white, is 10.5 x 14.5 cm (plate dimensions 9 x 12.5 cm). It was designed by Wheatley himself, and is everything you would hope from a writer in his field. A naked Wheatley, with slicked-back 1920s hairstyle, sits at the feet of a cloven-footed devil (Wheatley’s mentor G. Eric Gordon-Tombe, and the man he is alleged to have murdered) under the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.

On 11 x 6.5 cm rectangle of paper, laid down on the pastedown of a 12mo calf front board. Beneath the title: 'This Library is enriched with every work of merit, as soon as published; and comprises such a variety of Travels, Histories, Biography, Novels, Plays, and Literature in general, as cannot fail to graify every Class of Readers. | The Daily Papers taken in.' Following this are the yearly, half-yearly, quarterly and monthly terms for borrowing two and four books. Further text follows, beginning: 'Books read by Non-subscribers charged according to the Size.' and ending 'T. M.