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Burton, Alfred.
Rush-Bearing: An Account of the Old Custom of Strewing Rushes; Carrying Rushes to Church; The Rush Cart; Garlands in Churches; Morris-Dancers; The Wakes; The Rush.
Publisher: Brook & Chrystal Manchester;
Date of Publication: 1891
Stock Code: 10036
FIRST EDITION, one of only 500 copies printed. Quarto, pp. x, 189, [1]. Illustrated with large folding prospectus, frontispiece, and black and white plates. Bound in the original tan cloth stamped in black and gilt, with gilt and black titles to spine, sage green floral pattered endpapers. Very lightly soiled to cloth, and light foxing to prospectus and prelims else an unusually near fine copy. Scarce work on English folk customs, lavishly illustrated throughout with drawings and eerie photographs of rural processions. From the library of Thomas Nadauld Brushfield (1828–1910), the prominent alienist, bibliophile, antiquarian, and Walter Raleigh scholar. Brushfield consulted at Bethnal House Asylum, and Chester County Lunatic Asylum amongst others and his pioneering approaches, including non-restraint methods and organising entertainment and fancy dress balls for the inmates, were adapted by Asylums across Victorian England. £85.00