On Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 7:10:14 PM UTC-5, Jerry Morris wrote:

igs63@btinternet.com (igs) wrote:
Can anyone help me identify the book described in the following
paragraph:
"I drew a volume from my pocket; blind-tooled on the green in a double
circle was a single star above what was perhaps a sea. It was the tenth edition, of 1917."
The paragraph above was written in the 1930s, and the description is
believed to be factual. It is believed that it refers to a British book
which would have been quite well-known at the time.
I have placed an my own "artist's impressions" of what I think the logo
might look like at the following address: http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.g.simpson/bitmaps/motif.jpg although
other interpretations might be equally valid.
I believe this to be either a publisher's logo or perhaps a school
crest, but so far my enquiries have drawn a blank. Any suggestions which might assist with the identification of the book would be most welcome. Thanks for any help.
A very interesting thread!
Francis A. Miniter brought up the possiblity that the book was a work by Aleister Crowley:
"......At this point, (clearly, post-finally) it occurred to me that
Aleister Crowley kept popping up a lot here. He was an Englishman
reputed to be "the wickedest man on Earth", and perhaps by his own
attempts to spread that reputation. And he wrote in the relevant time
period. For instance, his book, "The Star and the Garter" (77 pages) was published in 1904, leaving plenty of time for a 10th edition by 1917. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find detailed descriptions of the book. Could the "perhaps a sea" actually be the depiction of a garter?"
I queried Clive Harper, the Osman Spare bibliographer. Clive was the
Aleister Crowley collector who bid against me in December 2003: http://www.tinyurl.com/3yblp
According to Clive Harper, Crowley's Star and the Garter never made it
to a tenth edition. The only Crowley book published in 1917 was Volume
II of his Book of Laws, sometimes referred to as the Holy Books. They
were published in velum-covered boards, however.
Time to put the thinking cap on....The mystery book was mentioned in a
book of puzzles. Perhaps there is more to the description than meets
the eye. For a book to go into its tenth edition, it must have been
published by a popular publisher. If it is a publisher's device in
blind, maybe there is more to the device than is mentioned in the description.
I went through my library, concentrating on the popular series
publishers, and struck paydirt with the publisher's device of Henry G.
Bohn: http://www.tinyurl.com/7q6uh
This device was used for Henry Bohn's Standard Library, his Classical LIbrary. Philosophical Library, and Popular Library to name a few.
There is a star within the double circled border which identifies the
Bohn's Library series.
There's only one problem. Henry G. Bohn was long dead by 1917. George
Bell & Sons, however, continued to publish reprints of the Bohn
libraries up to at least the 1930s. A check at abebooks reveals that
some of these books published by George Bell & Sons contained the Bohn Library device in blind on their covers.
I'm betting the book was published by George Bell & Sons, and that it is
from one of the Bohn Libraries.
Jerry Morris

Welcome to Moi's Books About Books: http://www.tinyurl.com/hib7
My Sentimental Library http://www.picturetrail.com/mylibrary
moislibrary.com http://www.tinyurl.com/hisn and http://www.floridabibliophilesociety.org

The book is "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde. An image of the tenth edition has the symbol and everything else that the original post asked for.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)